llf 


'THAT  YOU,  OF  ALL  MEN,  SHOULD  DO  THAT  !   AND  YOU  A  SCOT  1" 


The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 


A  Story  of  Love,  Eco 
nomics    and    Religion 


By 
DAVID  N.  BEACH 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  CHARLES  COPELAND 


BOSTON 

ZTbe  [Pilgrim  press 

CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,  1902 
BY  DAVID  N.  BEACH 


TO 

L.  T.  B. 


M667919 


Not.  perfect,  nay,  but  full  of  tender  wants, 
No  Angel,  but  a  dearer  being,  all  dipt 
In  Angel  instincts,  breathing  Paradise, 
Interpreter  between  the  Gods  and  men, 
Who  look'd  all  native  to  her  place,  and  yet 
On  tiptoe  seem'd  to  touch  upon  a  sphere 
Too  gross  to  tread. 

— Tennyson. 


Contents 


PAGE 

FOREWORD 9 

I.      DUNCAN  MCLEOD'S  u  THIS  DO  "     ....       11 

ii.    JOHN    HOPE,   WEAVER'S  SON,  OF  FALL 

RIVER 31 

III.  HE  REGISTERS  A  VOW,  AND  CHOOSES  HIS 

WEAPON 48 

IV.  TWO  WOMEN  OF  STIRLING 63 

V.      THE  MAKING  OF  A  SCOT 79 

VI.  A  CALEDONIAN  CAPTAIN  OF  FINANCE  .       .      98 

VII.  KATHLEEN  GORDON'S  CORONATION  DAY     .    109 

VIII.  "  THIS  DO  "    RECOILS  ON  DUNCAN  MCLEOD    128 

IX.  A  RIGHTEOUS  MAN'S  REPENTANCE  .      .       .144 

X.      PENTECOST  AGAIN 166 

XI.  BISHOP  GREATHEART  ORDAINS  UNCANON- 

ICALLY 180 

XII.  FOR  MORE  THAN  DIVIDENDS         .      .       .      .190 

XIII.  PROFIT-SHARING  AT  THE  ANNIE  LAURIE  .   201 

XIV.  BONAPARTE  SHARP,  CAPTAIN  OF  FINANCE    219 

5 


6  Contents 

PAGE 

XV.      HIS  BLANK  WALL 235 

XVI.  DILEMMA  AND  PARADOX  OF  LOVE   .      .       .251 

XVII.  BONAPARTE   SHARP   SMASHES  HISS  BLANK 

WALL 261 

XVIII.      FOR  DIVIDENDS  ONLY 278 

XIX.  JOSEPH  MAKES  HIMSELF  STRANGE  .      .      .    299 

XX.  A  RIGHTEOUS  WOMAN'S  REPENTANCE  .      .311 

XXI.  BONAPARTE  SHARP  CATCHES  A  TARTAR    .    322 

XXII.  HIS  BLANK  WALL  RISES  AGAIN        .      .      .    344 

XXIII.  THE  LAST  OF  BONAPARTE  SHARP     .      .       .   360 

XXIV.  AULD  LANG  SYNE 372 

xxv.  AT  DRUMMOND'S  GRAVE  .                      .  390 


List  of  Illustrations 

Facing  page 
"And  You  a  Scot!"— Frontispiece 1 

"It  Might  Have  Been  Joan  of  Arc" 127 

"This  Do" .    .  142 

11  He  Uttered  a  Threatening  Imprecation  " 249 

11  He  Laughed,  He  Cried  » 342 

The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp 368 

The  Stone  at  Drummond's  Grave — From  a  Photograph  .  394 

PLACES  SKETCHED  WITH  ILLUSTRATED 
INITIALS 

Page 

Pike's  Peak,  from  Colorado  Springs 11 

Tower  and  Roofs  at  Yale 48 

Stirling  Castle -•   • 63 

University  of  Edinburgh    ......' 79 

Mount  of  the  Holy  Cross,  Colorado 180 

Lower  New  York,  from  off  the  Battery 219 

Old  Greyfriars'  Church,  Stirling 390 


The  history  of  mankind  interests  us  only  as  it  exhibits  a 
steady  gain  of  truth  and  right,  in  the  incessant  conflict 
which  it  records,  between  the  material  and  the  moral 
nature. — Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Slavery  has  not  only  been  controlled,  but  it  has  been  des 
troyed,  and  yet  things  have  not  begun  to  come  right  with 
us  ;  but  it  was  in  the  order  of  Providence  that  chattel  slavery 
should  cease  before  industrial  slavery,  and  the  infinitely 
crueler  and  stupider  vanity  and  luxury  bred  of  it,  should  be 
attacked.  —  William  Dean  Eowells. 


Foreword 

"  The  dilemma  and  paradox  of  love  ?  " 

"  For  more  than  dividends  f  " 

"  Does  that  mighty  bugle  note,  lln  His  Steps? 
compass  the  gospel  f  " 

Yes,  gentle  reader,  all  three  of  these  inquiries 
are  of  the  very  substance  of  this  history.  They 
are,  moreover,  fused  into  one  at  the  flaming  eco 
nomic  crux  of  our  time.  If  this  offend  thee, 
if  a  "purpose  "  herein  cause  thee  to  stumble, 
pray  pass  by  on  the  other  side. 


Feudalism,  with  its  domains,  its  un  taxed  lands,  its  re 
tainers,  its  exemptions  and  privileges,  made  war  upon  the 
aspiring  spirit  of  humanity  and  fell  centuries  ago  with  all 
its  feudal  grandeur.  But  its  spirit  walks  the  earth  to-day 
and  haunts  our  institutions,  in  the  great  corporations  with 
their  control  of  the  national  highways,  their  occupation  of 
great  domain,  their  power  to  tax  and  to  escape  taxation, 
their  sorcery  to  debase  most  gifted  men  to  the  capacity  of 
most  splendid  slaves,  their  pollution  of  the  ermine  of  the 
judge  and  the  robe  of  the  senator,  their  aggregation  in  one 
man  of  wealth  so  enormous  as  to  make  Croesus  seem  a 
pauper. — Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis. 

Almost  the  worst  enemy  of  human  society  is  the  spirit  of 
caste  ;  and  the  tragic  element  in  the  constitution  of  our 
modern  society  is  that,  under  forms  of  government  that 
profess  long  ago  to  have  abandoned  it,  it  still  appears  in 
forms  more  insolent  and  mischievous  than  any  it  has  pre 
viously  assumed.  While  we  may  be  patient  with  the  caste 
spirit  when  it  survives  as  a  product  of  earlier  ages,  or  tribal 
distinctions,  or  feudal  tradition,  or  distinguished  ancestry, 
or  social  culture, — when  we  see  it,  as  too  often  we  see  it 
to-day,  the  mere  incarnation  of  material  possessions,  held 
in  huge  bulk  and  adroit  association,  it  becomes  a  menace 
alike  to  the  right  of  the  weak  and  the  freedom  of  the  poor. 
A  caste  of  capitalists  separated  by  practically  impassable 
barriers  from  a  caste  of  laborers,  means  social  anarchy  and 
industrial  war. — Bishop  Henry  C.  Potter. 


The  Annie  Laurie  Mine: 

A  Story  of  Love,  Economics  and  Religion 


DUNCAN  MCLEOD'S  "  THIS  DO  " 

HE  man  will  be  dead,"  said 
the  superintendent,  and  the 
earth  seemed  still  to  shake. 
"  He  was  well  back  of  the 
explosion,  but  he  has  no  air." 
"  Most  men,"  Duncan  Mc- 
Leod  answered,  "would  be 
dead,  but  not  Douglas  Campbell." 

"But,  McLeod,  no  rescuer  can  live  down 
there,"  insisted  the  superintendent. 

"Wet  the  blankets.  I  give  you  two  min 
utes."  That  was  all  Duncan  said,  but  he  so 
said  it  that  not  a  man  at  the  Annie  Laurie 

Mine  would  have  dared  to  disobey  him. 
ii 


12  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

* 

Then  he  began  pumping  his  lungs  as  if  the 
compressors  were  at  them,  his  red  woolen 
sweater  expanding  and  contracting  like  india 
rubber,  his  face  getting  redder  and  redder, 
and  his  eyes  almost  starting  from  their 
sockets. 

"  Swathe  me  in  them,"  he  said. 

The  shock  had  displaced  the  hoisting  ma 
chinery,  but  some  one  had  the  presence  of 
mind  to  thrust  a  long  ladder  down  to  the  edge 
of  the  uppermost  level  in  the  shaft,  along 
which  the  accident  had  occurred.  Down  this 
ladder,  into  the  smoking  level,  all  legs,  arms, 
sweater,  and  a  bundle  of  dripping  blankets  for 
head,  plunged  Duncan,  and  the  men  pulled 
out  their  watches. 

"  He  will  smother,  himself,"  said  the  super 
intendent,  gloomily. 

"  He  always  pumped  his  lungs  that  way  be 
fore  his  long  swims  under  water,"  answered 
John  Hope.  "He  took  first-class  honors  in 
biology  at  Edinburgh ;  and  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  a  man  can  approximate  what  the 
whale  can  do  in  the  way  of  holding  his  breath, 
if  only  he  will  first  aerate  his  blood  sufficiently. 
I  have  seen  him  dive  from  the  shore  at  the 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       13 

Forth  Bridge,  and  not  come  up  again  until  he 
had  reached  the  island  amidst  stream." 

One  minute,  two,  three,  four.  They  begin 
to  count  seconds. 

Then  out  of  the  smoke  emerges  a  body,  so 
limp  and  white  and  powder-stained  that  the 
men  shudder ;  and,  beneath  the  body,  struggle 
upward  the  bundle  of  dripping  blankets,  the 
sweater,  the  arms  and  the  legs. 

The  body  is  laid  flat,  and  its  rescuer 
staggers  while  John  Hope  and  the  super 
intendent  unwind  the  blankets.  Duncan's 
face  is  black.  To  resume  breathing  costs  him 
anguish.  After  a  moment  he  gasps.  Then,  at 
first  slowly,  then  faster,  come  the  breaths. 

"Not  me,  men,  but  Douglas!"  cries  their 
hero  ;  "  he  lives  ;  resuscitate  him  !  "  and, 
though  barely  himself  alive,  he  leads  in  the 
work,  until  Douglas  Campbell  breathes,  slowly 
opens  his  eyes,  and  moans,  "  It 's  mither  I  'se 
wantin' ; "  and — while  not  a  man  of  them  can 
speak — Duncan  McLeod  mothers  him  back  to 
consciousness  and  to  life. 

The  story  was  picked  up  by  a  traveling 
newspaper  man  within  the  week,  and  wired 
from  Leadville  to  the  Denver  papers;  but, 


14  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

long  before  that,  it  had  gone  from  mouth  to 
mouth  up  the  canons,  and  over  the  Divide, 
and  had  been  told  in  a  thousand  miners' 
cabins. 

"B'  the  Holy  Virgin,"  shouted  a  burly 
Irishman,  taking  his  cob  pipe  from  between 
his  teeth  in  the  firelight,  and  clenching  a  fist 
that  was  a  terror  to  evil-doers  all  through  his 
particular  camp — "B'  the  Holy  Virgin,  I'd 
ruther  'a'  been  the  man  to  V  done  that  dade, 
than  to  'a'  sthruck  the  Independence  Mine!" 
and  he  was  applauded  until  the  hills  rang 
again. 

This  heroism,  not  yet  two  months  old, 
rushed  back  upon  John  Hope's  recollection,  at 
the  climax  of  the  following  conversation  with 
Duncan  McLeod : 

"  But  that  is  not  the  point,  Duncan." 
"  I  fail,  John,  to  see  wherein  not." 
"Duncan,  are  not  these  the  words:    'He 
appointed  twelve,  that   they  might  be  with 
him,  and  that  he  might  send  them  forth '  ?  " 

"Just  what  I  contend,  John,  'that  he 
might  send  them  forth.'  That  is  the  objective. 
'  In  His  Steps '  is  right.  '  What  would  Jesus 
do?'  'This  do.'  The  end  of  the  gospel  is 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       15 

deeds.  "We  Edinburgh  men,  on  whom  Drum- 
mond  used  to  play  as  we  heard  Trinity  organ 
played  upon  the  night  of  the  *  Elijah '  at 
Denver,  were  taught  that.  Drummond  and 
Sheldon,  though  in  such  different  registers, 
strike  the  same  note." 

"  Drummond,  I  think,  wrote  *  The  Greatest 
Thing  in  the  World'?" 

"Certainly." 

"  And  is  said  to  have  '  lived  in  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  First  Corinthians '  ?  " 

"  Ay,  and  far  ben,  too." 

"And  Moody,  who  was  all  deeds,  counted 
Drummond  a  better  Christian  than  he  ?  " 

"  Our  time  has  not  seen  so  good  a  Christian." 

"  You  have  been  through  the  Biography  ?  " 

"I  have  devoured  it.  The  portrait,  oppo 
site  the  title-page,  with  the  folded  arms,  and 
the  eyes  that  blaze,  is  just  how  he  would  look 
a  man  through, — so  quiet ;  his  voice,  when  he 
would  search  you  with  questions,  hardly  louder 
than  a  whisper." 

"  But  does  not  George  Adam  Smith  say  of 
him"— . 

"They  were  like  brothers,  and  he  should 
know." 


16  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Does  he  not  say  of  Drummond : 

"  'We  should  greatly  mistake  the  man  and  his  teaching 
if  we  did  not  perceive  that  the  source  and  the  return  of  all 
his  interest  in  men  and  of  all  his  trust  in  God  was  Jesus 
Christ'?" 

"  I  remember." 

"  But  what,  Duncan,  is  the  major  premise  in 
that  text?  Is  it  not,  'That  they  might  be 
with  him'?  Is  not  that,  as  George  Adam 
Smith  says  about  Drummond,  *  the  source  and 
the  return'  of  the  minor  premise,  'That  he 
might  send  them  forth '  ?  " 

"But  how,  John,  is  any  one  to  'be  with 
him '  except  in  deeds  ?  There  was  a  man  at 
Edinburgh  in  my  time.  He  was  in  medicine, 
and  very  poor.  He  saw  Drummond's  whole 
life  a  deed.  He  had  a  hard  head.  He  did  not 
believe  overmuch.  'I  can  break  Drummond's 
argument,'  he  would  say,  'but  I  can't  with 
stand  his  life.'  That  man,  one  night,  because 
that  was  the  sort  of  thing  Drummond  taught 
and  did,  sought  out  a  fellow  student  in  a 
house  where  he  should  never  have  gone ;  first, 
soundly  thrashed  him ;  then  took  him  to  his 
room,  and  fed  and  guarded  him  there  for  days 
till  the  alcohol  and  evil  passion  were  out  of  him  ; 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       17 

then  gave  up  the  rest  of  the  year  to  just 
living  with  him;  until,  one  day,  Drummond 
slew  both  of  them  with  the  sword  of  his 
mouth,  and  the  twain  became  humble  Chris 
tians.  But  it  cost  that  poor  medical  man  an 
extra  year  at  the  university,  and  little  to  eat 
but  oat-cake,  to  do  it.  Deeds,  John,  my  man, 
are  the  things." 

The  voice  of  Duncan  McLeod,  as  he  said 
this,  rang  out  above  the  rumbling  of  the  ore 
crushers  like  a  bugle  amidst  a  cannonade. 

The  oil  lamp  did  him  scant  justice,  standing 
there  six  feet  three,  his  soft  hat  thrust  to  the 
back  of  his  head,  his  great  brow  beaded  with 
sweat,  and  his  muscles  like  steel.  A  look 
came  into  his  face,  discernible  even  by  a  light 
so  poor.  His  voice  suddenly  sank  almost  to  a 
whisper,  yet  you  could  hear  it,  for  the  quality 
in  it,  above  the  roar  of  the  machinery,  and  it 
said,  "  THIS  Do." 

"When  John  Hope  heard  Duncan  McLeod 
so  speak,  and  saw  the  look  that  had  come 
into  his  face,  the  rescue  of  Douglas  Campbell 
flashed  before  him  again,  and  he  was  con 
scious  of  a  certain  shrinking  feeling,  as  if  he 
were  the  king  with  ten  thousand,  going 


l8  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

against  Duncan  with  twenty  thousand,  and 
as  if  an  ambassage  asking  conditions  of  peace 
were  perhaps  in  order. 

For  John  could  not  but  reflect  that  Duncan 
had  not  only  saved  Douglas  Campbell's  life  in 
a  manner  which  had  made  him  a  hero  all  over 
the  range,  but  that  he  had  also  been  at  the 
bottom  of  pretty  much  everything  of  worth 
that  had  happened  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

It  had  been  Duncan's  faith  in  that  particular 
fissure  vein,  which,  when  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  had  been  buried  with  almost  no  return, 
urged  on  the  work,  pledging  two  years'  service 
without  pay,  if  necessary  ;  and  only  so  had  the 
Annie  Laurie  "  struck,"  and  become  a  heavy 
dividend  payer. 

Moreover,  the  whole  esprit  de  corps  of  the 
plant  had  been  caught  from  him.  No  men 
loafed  on  their  jobs  there.  There  was  no  ore 
missing.  The  machinery  always  shone.  From 
shift  to  shift,  thrice  every  twenty-four  hours, 
the  men  passed  with  the  swiftness  and  alert 
ness  of  automatic  valves.  The  carrying  of 
weapons  had  been  abolished  on  the  men's  own 
initiative.  Duncan,  furthermore,  had  got  them 
to  agree  to  settle  their  personal  differences  by 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       19 

reference  to  a  standing  committee,  chosen  by 
themselves  from  their  own  ranks;  or,  if  that 
could  not  be  done,  to  settle  them  "man 
fashion,"  as  Duncan  called  it, — that  is  to  say, 
fist  to  fist  in  a  fair  fight ;  and  of  these  adjudi 
cations  they  always  insisted  that  he  should  be 
the  judge.  Such,  in  fact,  was  Duncan's  own 
prowess  at  the  gloves  that  no  two  men  at  the 
mine  would  have  cared  to  tackle  him. 

When  the  crew  was  first  gathered  it  included 
many  of  the  profane,  the  drunken  and  the 
licentious.  Now  all  was  changed.  An  oath, 
an  unsavory  story,  a  man  not  sober  and  clean, 
were  of  the  rarest  occurrence.  Yet  hardly  a 
man  had  been  discharged,  and  there  were  a 
hundred  of  the  best  men  in  the  mountains  on 
the  waiting  list  for  positions,  such  was  the 
enviable  repute  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 
"  Turn  him  over  to  me,"  Duncan  would  say  of 
this  and  that  incorrigible,  and  the  incorrigibles 
had,  one  after  another,  become  among  the  most 
valued  men  on  the  works.  "  Commend  to  me 
the  incorrigibles,"  he  would  say,  in  that  electri 
fying  way  of  his ;  "  the  stuff  is  in  them ;  all 
you  have  to  do  with  them  is  to  get  them  on 
the  right  shift." 


2O  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Duncan  was  in  their  "  Miners'  Club."  He 
could  not  have  been  drawn  by  horses  to  ac 
cept  even  the  most  subordinate  office  in  it, 
but  he  was  its  loadstone.  Little  by  little  the 
club  debated  politics  less,  and  policies  more. 
One  night  everybody,  except  Duncan  McLeod 
and  Douglas  Campbell,  was  thunderstruck. 
Up  rose  Jamie  McDuff.  When  the  crew  was 
gathered  he  was  the  worst  drunkard  in  it.  It 
was  a  drawn  fight  for  a  long  time  whether  al 
cohol  or  Jamie  should  be  on  top.  Then,  on  a 
sudden,  he  stopped  drinking  sharp  off.  But, 
even  after  that,  he  stoutly  refused  to  take  the 
pledge,  and  argued  for  personal  liberty  and 
against  sumptuary  laws. 

He  is  on  his  feet  now.  "  Maister  Chairman," 
he  cries,  and  is  recognized,  "  it  '11  surprise  ye 
that  sic  as  I  should  move  ye  sic  a  resolution ; 
but  I  beg  to  forewarn  ye  that,  this  night,  seven 
days,  I  shall  offer  this  Eesolve,  to  wit : 

"  'That  the  overseers  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Corporation, 
be,  and  hereby  are.  respectfully  petitioned  to  bar  all  intox 
icants  from  the  lands  owned  by  the  said  corporation.'  " 

Such  a  debate  was  never  heard  in  the  Rock 
ies  before  or  since.  Not  till  the  mine  bell  was 
ringing  for  the  midnight  shift  did  it  end. 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       21 

Jamie  began,  and  closed.  Not  a  word  passed 
his  lips  in  the  heated  hours  between.  His 
opening  was  brief,  logical,  pointed,  but  had  a 
dignity  and  reserve  about  it,  as  if  he  desired 
not  to  compromise  his  clan.  The  debaters 
were  numerous,  and  about  equally  matched, 
and  there  was  grave  doubt  whether  the  motion 
could  pass  by  even  the  smallest  majority. 

At  eleven-twenty  o'clock  Jamie  stood  up  to 
close.  Then  the  eloquence  of  Knox  and  the 
poetry  and  pathos  of  Burns  broke  loose.  He 
ran  unreportably  into  dialect.  At  times  there 
would  be  a  sentence  or  two  in  the  Gaelic, 
which  not  ten  present  knew,  but  which  all  un 
derstood,  as  at  Pentecost.  Near  the  end  he 
adduced  Burns.  Then  one  saw,  as  by  light 
ning  flashes,  Ayr,  Dumfries,  the  Alloway 
Kirk,  the  Witches,  Tam-o'-Shanter,  Scotland's 
glory  and  shame.  "  Was  na'  Tarn  Burns  him- 
sel'  ?  "  he  asked,  with  indescribable  passion,  and 
there  was  not  a  dry  eye.  But  his  climax  came 
when  he  began,  "  An7  noo  oor  Duncan  " —  and 
Duncan  left  the  room  as  if  shot.  He  had 
strictly  charged  Jamie  on  no  account  to  men 
tion  his  name,  and  understood  now  how  Jesus 
could  not  silence  those  whom  he  had  helped. 


22  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Dialect  and  Gaelic  mixed  hopelessly  again. 
"  Dinna  ye  mind,"  he  said  in  conclusion,  "  hoo 
spare  oor  Duncan  was  this  time  twal'month  ? 
A'  the  lave  he  pit  up  wi-,  yet  the  mair  keepit 
he  vigil  o'  sic  as  me  saxteen  'oors  the  day — an* 
I  stoppit.  'Tis  for  oor  Duncan  I  move  ye, 
Maister  Chairman,  that  the  Kesolution  pass." 

It  passed,  seventy-seven  ayes,  five  nays,  and 
eleven  not  voting.  The  company  granted  the 
petition,  only  too  gladly ;  and,  for  a  week, 
teams  were  coming  and  going,  carrying  bar 
rels,  kegs  and  cases  of  liquor  seventy  miles 
down  the  valley  to  the  railway  station  whence 
they  came. 

In  all  these  turnings  and  overturnings  Doug 
las  Campbell  was  a  force  in  the  camp  hardly 
second  to  Duncan  McLeod.  Possessing  only 
the  most  rudimentary  education,  nearly  dead 
with  homesickness  for  wife  and  bairns  during 
his  first  weeks  at  the  Annie  Laurie,  and  with 
the  entire  miners'  craft  to  learn,  he  had  never 
theless  become,  within  two  years,  second  to 
none  in  the  levels  in  the  amount  of  ore  per 
diem  he  could  dislodge,  and  was  studying 
mining  engineering,  under  Duncan's  tuition, 
several  hours  a  day  besides.  He  was  Duncan's 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       23 

alter  ego.  Short  of  stature,  but  thick-set,  and 
with  muscles  and  flesh  harder  than  most 
athletes',  he  held  the  Annie  Laurie  record  for 
putting  the  hammer,  was  a  universal  favor 
ite,  and  could  "  put "  character  second  only  to 
Duncan. 

When  the  mutiny  came, — for  the  devil  of 
alcohol  did  not  leave  the  camp  without  almost 
rending  it, — Douglas  was  key  to  the  situation. 
He  told  no  tales.  No  man  ever  accused  Doug 
las  of  "  blawin'."  But  a  look,  and  a  sentence 
or  two,  to  Duncan,  at  lesson  the  day  before, 
which,  in  point  of  fact,  said  nothing,  were  all 
that  a  mind  like  Duncan's  needed. 

At  midnight,  between  shifts,  in  a  dark  spot, 
with  the  lighted  punk  in  his  hand  with  which 
he  meant  to  kindle  the  fuse  and  blow  up  the 
works,  Pat  Sullivan  was  jerked  a  foot  into  the 
air  with  a  grip  around  his  throat  as  if  the 
hangman  had  him.  No  man  in  the  camp  but 
Duncan  McLeod  could  give  a  hoist  like  that. 
In  another  instant  Pat  is  on  the  ground ;  feels 
the  punk  thrust  into  his  mouth,  where  the  to 
bacco  juice  instantly  quenches  it;  and,  in  a 
moment  more,  is  pinioned,  hand  and  foot. 
Then,  out  of  the  darkness,  at  Duncan's  signal, 


24  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

twelve  trusty  men,  Douglas  Campbell  at  their 
head,  march  on  an  innocent  looking  barn, 
frighten  off  its  concealed  guards  with  a  few 
well-delivered  fist  blows,  and  seize  fifty  rifles 
and  five  thousand  rounds  of  ammunition,  that 
the  plotters  have  somehow  succeeded  in  smug 
gling  into  the  camp. 

The  place  is  all  alight  now,  for  some  one  has 
started  a  bonfire.  It  is  a  sight  never  to  for 
get.  Pat  Sullivan,  unable  to  move,  but  utter 
ing  the  most  obscene  and  fearful  oaths,  and  cry 
ing  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  Light  the  fuse ! 
Fire  the  works ! "  lies  there  flat  on  the  ground. 

And  there  is  Jamie  McDuff  at  the  head  of 
a  group  of  men  he  has  swiftly  gathered,  with 
the  wild  beast  of  the  mountains  as  much 
aroused  in  him  now,  as  Scotland's  poetry  and 
eloquence  had  been  when  he  carried  the 
"  Kesolution,"  and  shouting,  "Lynch  him! 
burn  him  that  for  the  luve  o'  whuskie  wid 
hae  blawn  up  the  mine,  an'  wid  hae  murdered 
or  scattered  far  awa'  the  best  crew  in  the 
mountains ! "  He  has  jostled  Duncan  aside. 
He  is  over  Pat  with  the  noose.  Now  he  has 
it  adjusted,  and  a  dozen  men  are  pulling  at  the 
rope. 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       25 

"  Hands  off ! "  cries  Duncan  in  stentorian 
tone. 

"  When  Pat 's  a  ghaist ! "  as  loudly  yells 
Jamie ;  and  part  of  the  crowd  of  wild  men, 
the  wilder  because  their  cause  seems  to  them 
just,  lines  up,  facing  Duncan  to  keep  him  off, 
while  the  others  begin  dragging  Pat  away, 
who,  with  what  breath  he  can  draw,  is  by  this 
time  crying  piteously  for  mercy. 

Pale  as  death,  rigid  as  steel,  with  eyes  that 
gleam  like  stars,  Duncan,  after  a  moment's 
pause,  springs  on  the  three  foremost  in  the 
line-up,  closes,  drags  them  down ;  throws  this 
way  and  that  a  fourth,  a  fifth,  a  sixth ;  springs 
through  the  rest ;  seizes  McDuff  by  the  throat, 
as  he  had  seized  Sullivan  with  the  lighted 
punk;  and,  when  the  mob  begins  to  cower, 
loosens  his  hold,  and  exclaims : 

"  McDuff,  I  'm  ashamed  of  you  !  That  you, 
of  all  men,  should  do  that!  And  you  a 
Scot ! " 

"But  'twas  murder  and  arson  Sullivan 
plotted,"  feebly  retorts  Jamie,  hanging  his 
head. 

"  But,  McDuff,"  continues  Duncan,  "a  worse 
thing  than  fire  and  blood-letting  had  you  be- 


26  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

gun  at  the  Annie  Laurie,  had  Sullivan  either 
hanged  or  burned  at  your  hands.  To  avenge 
crime  with  crime  is  crime  basest  of  all.  D'  ye 
no  ken  your  John  Knox  ?  " 

All  are  still  now.  The  bonfire's  light  shows 
an  astonishing  group  of  faces.  Then  suddenly 
one  hears : 

"Jamie,"  and  Duncan's  voice  is  tender 
now — "  Jamie,  take  off  the  rope." 

Jamie  takes  it  off. 

"  Jamie,  cast  it  into  the  fire." 

Jamie  casts  it  in. 

Then  Duncan  stoops  over  Pat,  as  if  he  were 
but  a  hurt  girl,  unpinions  him,  and,  rising,  says : 

"  Sullivan,  get  up." 

Sullivan  gets  up,  all  a-tremble. 

"  Sullivan,"  Duncan  goes  on,  searching  him 
with  his  eyes,  "I  will  answer  to  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mining  Company,  and  to  the  governor 
of  Colorado,  for  any  harm  you  henceforth  do. 
Gentlemen," — and  he  turns  to  the  mob  with 
a  look  like  the  Judgment  Day, — "  whoever 
harms  Sullivan,  dies  !  " 

Then  Duncan,  in  his  passion  of  holy  love 
hardly  realizing  how  perilously  his  own  last 
word  nears  Judge  Lynch's  jurisdiction,  disap- 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       27 

pears.  "When  they  seek  him  out,  he  is  at  his 
assayer's  bench  making  the  regular  one  o'clock 
tests,  as  if  he  should  say,  "  What  is  it  ?  Noth 
ing  has,  I  think,  happened." 

That  midnight,  John  Hope  remembered, 
was  the  end  of  all  disorder  whatsoever  in  the 
camp.  The  rifles  and  the  ammunition  started 
for  the  station  the  next  morning.  There  were 
no  arrests.  Sullivan  and  McDuff  became 
swiftly  the  warmest  of  friends.  The  great 
and  saving  love  that  encompassed  them  both, 
made  them  one.  Their  only  contention  was, 
which  should  best  serve  the  company.  For 
Duncan  either  of  them  would  have  counted  it 
joy  to  die. 

Moreover, — and  this  was  not  the  least  happy 
thing  about  it, — so  successfully  did  Duncan 
seal  up  the  tidings  of  the  mutiny,  that  no 
news-gatherer  heard  of  it  for  more  than  a 
month. 

"  The  thing  is  dead  now,"  said  the  syndicate 
man  at  Salt  Lake  City ;  "  but,  Simpkins,  when 
you  are  going  through  to  Pueblo,  just  look  in 
on  it." 

When  Simpkins  alighted  from  the  stage  at 
the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  he  could  find  nobody 


28  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  had  heard  of  it.  He  plied  all  his  arts  on 
a  person  named  Sullivan,  whom  the  syndicate 
man  had  mentioned  suspiciously ;  but,  getting 
no  more  out  of  him  than  Sain  Weller  yielded 
in  the  celebrated  Bardell-Pickwick  cross-ex 
amination,— though  he  got  Irish  wit  fully  the 
equal  of  Sam  Weller's  English  brand, — and 
hearing,  moreover,  that  Sullivan  had  just  re 
ceived  an  increase  in  wages,  he  telegraphed 
Salt  Lake  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  fake, 
and  added  circumstantially  his  reasons  for  this 
conclusion  by  the  first  mail. 

Singularly  enough,  McDuff  alone,  on  this 
occasion,  weakened.  "  Oor  Duncan,"  he 
thought,  should  have  his  due.  "  I  doot,  mon," 
he  therefore  furtively  suggested  to  Sinipkins, 
"ye '11  hae  a  word  or  twa  wi'  Maister  Mc- 
Leod."  The  telegram  had  gone,  but  Sinipkins 
was  no  shirk,  and  interviewed  his  man. 

"  'T  was  something  like  this,"  said  Duncan, 
in  his  most  confiding  way.  "You  have 
heard,  I  dare  say,  of  our  Miners'  Club  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  answered  Simpkins ;  "  and 
most  favorably,  Mr.  McLeod,  thank  you;  in 
fact,  I  am  purposing  to  write  it  up  for  the 
Review  of  Reviews" 


Duncan  McLeod's  "This  Do"       29 

"  Do  so,"  continued  Duncan ;  "  people  will 
read  it.  Well,  our  men  are  very  fond  of  the 
late  Henry  Drummond  ;  and,  one  night,  after 
Club,  as  the  mood  struck  them,  they  lighted  a 
bonfire  and  had  some  horse-play  in  honor  of 
him.  I  happened  to  know  Drummond  person 
ally  in  the  old  country,  and— for  I  knew 
nothing  would  please  him  better — I  went 
in  with  them,  and  a  jolly  night  of  it  we 
made." 

Simpkins  was  a  man  of  enthusiasms.  He 
added  that  night's  bonfire  and  horse-play  to 
his  notes  about  the  Club,  mentioning  partic 
ularly  that  the  head  assayer  had  entered 
boisterously  into  the  revels.  Then  he  ques 
tioned  the  assayer  about  Drummond  at  great 
length,  took  copious  notes,  thanked  him  pro 
fusely,  climbed  to  the  stage  roof,  and,  con 
gratulating  himself  on  his  Drummond  find, 
was  gone. 

Denver  called  up  Salt  Lake,  a  few  nights 
later,  to  inquire  what  Simpkins  had  found  out. 
"  They  've  an  extraordinary  Club  at  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine,"  answered  the  syndicate  man. 
"Club  reads  Drummond.  Had  a  bonfire  and 
some  sports  in  his  honor.  Sullivan  seems 


30  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

prominent  among  them,  and  is  all  right.  Is 
liked  so  well  he  lately  had  his  wages  raised. 
Queer  folks  at  the  Annie  Laurie.  Better 
bring  them  over  the  mountains  to  your  next 
Festival  of  Mountain  and  Plain." 

Thus,  as  usual,  Duncan  McLeod  carried  his 
point,  and  followed,  as  he  supposed,  his  leader. 
But  for  the  Douglas  Campbell  incident,  it  may 
be  that  he  would  always  have  supposed  so. 
But  that  incident  had  recently  occurred,  big 
with  meanings  ;  and  how  little  this  strenuous 
man  was  at  peace  within  himself,  notwith 
standing  his  outwardly  confident  debate  with 
John  Hope, — even  as  John  Hope  had  until 
lately  been  little  at  peace, — events  swiftly 
culminating  will  disclose. 


II 


JOHN  HOPE,  WEAVER'S  SON,  OF  FALL  EIVEB 

T7  OHN  HOPE'S  appear 
ance  was  not  prepossess- 
r  ing.  He  was  hardly  of 
medium  height.  He  was 
heavily  and  awkwardly  built.  His  hands 
were  thick  and  stubbed.  His  lower  jaw  was 
nearly  square.  It  and  its  fellow  joined  like  a 
vise.  His  forehead  was  too  large.  No  one 
could  have  been  so  born,  except  out  of  stress. 

And  yet  it  rarely  occurred  to  people  that 
John  Hope  was  not  good  looking.  His  friend 
Bowers,  the  artist,  liked  to  tell  why. 

"I  am,  as  you  know,"  Bowers  would 
premise,  "  something  of  a  cyclone."  The 
accuracy  of  this  characterization  tended  to 
induce  confidence.  "  I  suppose,"  Bowers 
would  proceed,  "it  was  the  one  time  in  my 
life,  but,  when  I  first  met  Hope,  I  entered  his 
office  with  the  silence,"— here  you  raised  your 
only  query, — "  and,  I  fear,  with  the  stealth,  of 

3' 


32  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

a  thief.  "Why,  I  have  n't  the  dimmest  idea. 
I  am  not  a  grafter."  You  smiled  when  you 
thought  of  Bowers,  the  benevolent  and  the 
lavish,  as  "  a  grafter."  "  It  was  the  one  time. 
That  only,  I  am  sure,  can  explain  it.  I  wish 
some  one  had  snapped  me, — Bowers  the  silent 
and  the  stealthy ! "  Here  you  and  he  laughed, 
most  likely  till  your  sides  ached.  (Do  n't  see 
why  ?  Did  n't  know  Bowers !)  "  Well,  Hope 
was  alone.  It  was  his  New  York  office,  the 
inner  one.  He  sat  facing  the  door.  He  had 
his  eyes  closed ;  asleep,  I  supposed ;  in  point  of 
fact,  engaged — a  habit  of  his — in  profound 
thought.  A  friend  of  mine,  cartoonist  of  one 
of  the  big  dailies,  came  up  in  the  elevator 
with  me  on  his  way  to  the  office  next  Hope's. 
He  has  made  his  fame  caricaturing  a  cele 
brated  and  obnoxious  public  character  of  the 
'  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ? '  type. 
If  he  could  only  have  seen  Hope  with  his 
eyes  shut,  as  I  did,  he  could  have  improved 
the  cartoons  fifty  per  cent.  I  was  on  the 
point  of  sneaking  out  and  bringing  him  in, 
when  Hope,  who  was  no  more  asleep  than 
you  or  I,  opened  his  eyes.  I  distrusted  my 
senses.  I  thought  I  was  in  the  presence  of 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          33 

a  fine-looking  man.  His  eyes  did  it, — large, 
luminous,  penetrating,  kindly,  commanding 
you,  and  yet  wells  of  tenderness  and  good 
feeling.  Only  case  I  ever  met  where  the  eyes 
were  everything.  But,  by  Phidias,  I  wish 
Brown  could  have  got  the  sketch  1  Of  course, 
I  could  n't  ask  Hope  to  give  him  a  sitting ! " 
Here  you  and  he  laughed  again. 

John  Hope  was  a  weaver's  son,  of  Fall 
River.  There  were  seven  children.  Weavers' 
wages  weren't  large.  Frequent  shut-downs, 
in  John's  boyhood,  made  matters  worse.  But 
no  child  of  William  Hope's  ever  worked  in 
the  mills  a  day  that  he  could  be  in  the  public 
schools.  "  I  draw  the  line  at  that,"  said 
William,  with  a  look  in  his  face,  and  his  lines 
were  not  of  the  kind  that  rub  out. 

William  Hope  was  a  born  mechanic.  He 
worked  out  of  hours  in  the  repair  shop.  He 
was  repeatedly  approached  to  leave  the  looms, 
and  enter  that  work,  with  promise  of  larger 
pay ;  but  no  man  in  Fall  River  knew  weaving 
as  he  did ;  he  loved  it,  and  he  was  not  a  quit 
ter.  For  a  number  of  years,  too,  he  supposed 
that  he  would  be  promoted  to  some  work  of 
oversight ;  but  he  gradually  came  to  know  that 


34  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

another  kind  of  man  than  he  got  the  good 
places.  Did  this  dishearten  him?  No  one 
ever  knew.  He  simply  continued  at  the  looms 
as  fixedly  as  ever,  only  remarking,  "A  day 
will  come  when  that  sort  of  thing  will  defeat 
itself,  and  worth  will  win, — not  in  my  time ; 
perhaps  in  my  grandchildren's."  William  was 
an  optimist  with  staying  power. 

The  repair  shop  was  glad  to  use  all  the  ex 
tra  hours  William  Hope  could  give  it,  and  paid 
him  well  for  them.  Meantime,  his  wife,  Mary, 
who  was  a  skilful  needlewoman,  took  in  sew 
ing,  to  eke  out  the  family  funds.  She  and  her 
husband  denied  themselves  at  every  point 
where  they  could  wisely  save,  even  to  curtail 
ing  or  cheapening  their  own  food  and  clothing ; 
and  .the  children  were  not  only  kept  in  school, 
but  were  always  well  fed  and  well  dressed. 
When  not  in  school,  they,  too,  helped  at  home 
and  in  the  mill.  Every  member  of  the  family 
had  a  savings-bank  account,  and  three  or  four 
of  these  accounts  were  of  respectable  size. 

The  Hopes  allowed  themselves  three  lux 
uries  :  books,  giving,  and  a  four  days'  outing 
each  summer. 

"I  find  more  books,"  said  their  minister, 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          35 

who,  to  an  unusual  degree,  was  at  once 
preacher,  pastor  and  scholar,  "and  better 
bound  books  in  many  of  our  homes ;  but  no 
where  books  so  wisely  selected,  or  so  much  to 
the  purpose,  as  in  Mr.  Hope's." 

One  evening,  in  the  semi-privacy  of  his 
standing  committee,  the  minister  also  said: 
"  Brethren,  I  have  been  making  a  calculation, 
based  on  the  giving  to  our  church  of  William 
Hope  and  his  family, — for  every  one  of  them 
contributes, — and  based  on  the  seeming  pe 
cuniary  ability  of  our  entire  parish ;  and  I  es 
timate  that,  if  all  gave  in  the  proportion  of 
that  family,  foreign  missions  alone  would  re 
ceive  from  us  upwards  of  five  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  instead  of  some  three  hundred  as  now. 
Not  only  so,  but  they  make  an  unremitting 
campaign  of  giving  in  that  home.  Every 
month,  Mr.  Hope  tells  me,  he  has  the  family 
together;  they  confer  about  various  benevo 
lent  exigencies,  and  what  they  can  do  to  help  to 
meet  them  ;  they  make  the  matter  the  subject 
of  earnest  prayer ;  and  then  they  determine 
how  much  money,  the  coming  month,  they  will 
try  to  put  into  what  he  calls  their  '  Benevolent 
Bank.'  They  agree  on  a  sum  surprisingly 


36  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

large  for  their  circumstances;  and,  all  the 
month,  they  strive,  even  to  the  baby,  to  reach 
it.  They  hardly  ever,  Mr.  Hope  says,  fail  to 
do  so.  Since  they  adopted  this  plan,  he  adds, 
the  family  never  had  such  excellent  health,  nor 
otherwise  so  prospered." 

The  Hopes  usually  went  to  New  York  for 
their  outing.  All  the  family  went.  They 
took  the  boat  on  a  Monday  evening.  Arriving 
early  Tuesday  morning,  they  would  spend  four 
days  and  three  nights  in  the  metropolis,  and 
be  back  by  daylight  on  Saturday  morning. 
"When  the  smaller  children  were  weary,  the 
mother  would  stay  with  them  in  some  park ; 
but,  so  far  as  was  practicable,  they  went  every 
where  together. 

First,  the  father  would  take  the  family  on 
several  ferry  rides,  to  see  the  water  front  and 
the  shipping.  Then  he  would  conduct  them 
over  the  largest  transatlantic  liner  in  port. 
"  That  you  may  know,"  he  would  say,  "  that 
this  is  a  big  world.  Thinking  it  little,  shrivels 
lives." 

William  Hope  had  a  friend,  a  captain  of 
police,  a  man  after  Jacob  A.  Kiis'  own  heart. 
William  would  correspond  with  him,  and  so 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          37 

time  the  date  of  their  arrival  that  the  captain 
would  be  off  duty.  Under  his  escort  they 
would  next  visit  two  or  three  of  the  worst 
tenement  houses  in  New  York.  At  what  they 
saw,  the  children  would  sob  piteously ;  Mary 
Hope's  eyes  would  be  full  of  tears;  so,  at 
times,  would  William's ;  but  they  would  press 
relentlessly  on.  Then,  in  .some  little  neigh 
boring  grass-plot,— for  the  multiplying,  in  re 
cent  years,  of  such  places,  God  reward  all  that 
Mr.  Kiis  has  done ! — they  would  sit  under  the 
trees  and  feed  the  birds.  When  all  were 
cheerful  again,  William  would  say :  "  That 
you  may  know  that  the  world  is  not  only  big, 
but  that  there  is  selfishness  and  badness  in  it ; 
and  in  the  hope  that  our  boys  and  girls  will 
lift  hands  to  help  it.  'T  will  be  mother's  and 
father's  monument,  should  they  do  that." 

Besides  an  afternoon  down  the  harbor,  with 
surf-bathing  for  all,  and  perhaps  two  hours  of 
rollicking  fun  in  Central  Park  on  the  other 
afternoons, — some  noble  music,  the  finer 
public  buildings,  the  art  galleries  and  the 
libraries  would  get  the  rest  of  their  outing. 
"  *  He  hath  made  every  thing  beautiful  in  its 
time,'"  William  Hope  would  say,  with  bared 


38  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

head  and  a  voice  hard  to  command,  as  they 
stood  before  the  Metropolitan  Art  Museum. 
Then  they  would  enter.  And,  in  the  Astor 
Library,  "  Books,"  he  would  say,  "  have  made 
the  world, — not  their  dust,  but  their  life." 
When  he  stood  over  the  glass  case  exhibiting 
some  ancient  manuscript,  if  no  one  saw,  he 
would  kiss  it.  When  he  looked  upon  some 
rare  and  famous  edition  the  tears  would  start. 
William  Hope  had  a  genius  for  devouring 
books.  Four  or  five  hours'  sleep  a  night 
sufficed  him,  and  this  favored  that  diet. 
Hardly  a  professional  man  of  his  city  was 
so  well  read  as  he.  He  made  excursions 
into  economics.  His  specialty  was  English 
and  American  history,  with  general  history 
for  background.  When  the  principal  of  the 
Fall  Kiver  High  School  read  a  paper  before 
the  National  Teachers'  Association  on  "  The 
Teaching  of  History,"  and  when  his  minister 
gave  a  course  of  lectures  at  Andover  on  "  The 
English  Eeformation," — both  frankly  acknowl 
edged  their  large  indebtedness  to  William 
Hope.  When  questioned  why  he  confined 
himself  so  closely  to  the  history  of  Great 
Britain  and  America,  he  replied  :  "  Their  race 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          39 

will  determine  the  destiny  of  this  planet :  is 
there  a  more  important  historical  pursuit  than 
to  search  out  its  beginnings  and  unfoldings  ?  " 

William  Hope  would  join  no  trade-union. 
He  admitted  that  his  position  was  extreme ; 
that  force  required  sometimes  to  be  met  by 
force ;  but  certain  practices  common  to  most 
unions  troubled  his  conscience.  This  nearly 
cost  his  mill  two  or  three  strikes;  but  his 
straightforward  honesty  and  his  never-failing 
tact  averted  them.  "  When  trade-union  prin 
ciples  are  better,  I  will  gladly  join,"  he  said ; 
"  for  organization  has  indeed  a  certain  import 
ance, — easily  overestimated,  though." 

All  the  Hope  children  did  well,  morally, 
mentally,  and  in  practical  efficiency.  This 
was  more  than  could  be  said  of  the  superin 
tendent's  children,  or  of  those  of  the  president 
of  the  mill.  On  a  Thanksgiving  evening,  when 
the  children  and  their  friends  would  be  play, 
ing  blindman's  buff,  and  the  baby  would  be 
crowing  in  his  father's  arms,  William  would 
say  to  Mary :  "  Would  we  exchange  with 
any  ?  "  and  Mary,  unable  to  speak,  would  kiss 
his  forehead. 

John  Hope  was  the  third  child.     The  months 


4-O  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

before  he  was  born  were  the  family's  hardest. 
The  mills  were  shut  down.  There  was  no  work 
to  be  had.  It  was  a  winter  of  unusual  severity. 
Food  and  fuel  were  scarce.  All  the  family's 
money  had  been  drawn  from  the  savings-bank. 
How  they  lived,  William  and  Mary  Hope  could 
only  explain  out  of  the  Bible.  In  those  ter 
rible  months,  too,  the  father  fought  a  fierce 
fight  within  himself  over  the  causes  of  in 
dustrial  and  economic  depressions ;  over,  as  he 
could  not  but  conclude,  their  needlessness ;  and 
over  some  possible  better  industrial  and  eco 
nomic  order.  Coincidently,  the  mother  went 
through  a  religious  crisis,  in  which  all  faith 
left  her,  and  in  which  she  won  it  back  on 
surer  foundations.  Had  Bowers,  the  artist, 
known  these  facts,  he  might  have  understood 
better  the  physical  phenomenon  he  loved  to 
describe, — putting,  for  example,  the  eyes  and 
the  faith  together.  As  the  reader  has  now 
been  made  acquainted  with  them,  they  may 
throw  their  own  light  on  certain  things  to  be 
recorded  in  this  history. 

Like  his  father,  John  Hope  was  mechanical. 
In  addition,  he  was  very  ingenious.  Like  all 
quick-witted  boys  of  his  time,  he  lost  his  heart 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          41 

to  electricity.  The  engineer  at  the  city  power 
house  was  a  friend  of  William  Hope's.  Thereby 
John,  who  was  a  pet  of  the  engineer's,  had  the 
run  of  the  shop  connected  with  the  power 
house.  The  electrician  of  the  plant  liked  the 
boy,  too.  One  day  the  electrician,  in  referring 
to  a  certain  desideratum,  said :  "  Whoever  will 
invent  an  instrument  for  that  purpose  will 
make  the  public  lastingly  his  debtor." 

That  night  John  prayed  long  and  fervently. 
"  O  God,"  he  said  a  hundred  times,  with  various 
associated  pleadings,  "  show  me  this  secret,  and 
thereby  find  a  way  out  for  us  all !  " 

He  thought  prodigiously.  He  read  every 
thing  on  electricity  that  he  could  lay  his  hands 
on.  He  experimented  endlessly  in  his  little 
shop  at  home.  He  kept  on  praying.  One  night 
he  woke  out  of  sleep,  lighted  a  lamp,  drew  a 
rough  sketch,  kneeled  down  and  thanked  God. 

He  first  confided  in  his  father;  then  in  an 
attorney  who  was  a  member  of  their  church. 
The  attorney  was  fond  of  the  Hopes.  Many 
were  the  evenings  he  and  William  Hope  had 
spent  together  in  study  and  discussion  of 
certain  law  principles  that  obscurely  rooted 
themselves  ia  the  early  development  of  the 


42  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

British  constitution.  "  Your  papers  shall  not 
cost  you  a  cent,"  said  the  attorney ;  "  I  am 
glad  to  do  a  little  toward  repaying  what  I 
owe  your  father  for  what  he  has  taught  me  in 
my  own  profession."  But  the  patent  was  not 
sought  until  after  John  had  made  model  after 
model  during  long  months  by  way  of  perfect 
ing  his  invention. 

In  due  time  he  took  the  steamer  Pilgrim 
for  New  York.  The  next  morning  he  went  to 
the  headquarters  of  one  of  the  great  electrical 
companies,  and,  the  moment  the  offices  were 
open,  he  asked  that  he  might  see  the  proper 
person  for  considering  an  electrical  invention. 
The  clerk  whom  he  approached  sneered,  and 
showed  him  the  door.  A  half  hour  later  he 
accosted  a  different  clerk,  and  secured,  not 
without  taunts  first,  a  grudging  admission  to 
the  private  office  of  the  company's  principal 
expert  then  in  the  city.  John  took  his  model 
from  its  wrappings,  and  placed  it  on  the  table. 
He  caught  the  eager  look  that  entered  the  ex 
pert's  face,  and  took  courage. 

"  This  sort  of  thing  comes  to  us  every  day," 
said  the  expert,  gruffly,  coughing,  and  making 
his  face  look  hard ;  "  not  one  in  twenty  that 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          43 

offers  is  worth  the  metal  the  model  is  made  of. 
The  country  has  gone  crazy  on  electricity " ; 
and  he  waved  his  hand  toward  the  door. 

"But,  sir,"  replied  John,  "I  have  studied 
the  subject,  and  the  model  works." 

"Oh,  well,  taking  our  chances,  we  might 
give  you  twenty-five  dollars  for  it, — the  money 
most  likely  thrown  away,"  conceded  the  ex 
pert. 

John  picked  up  his  model,  and  was  leaving. 

"Wait,  boy,"  called  the  great  man,  "let  me 
see.  I  '11  risk  a  hundred  on  it,  out  of  my  own 
pocket ;  a  pure  gamble,  however." 

John's  hand  was  on  the  door-knob. 

"  Put  it  down  on  the  table,"  the  man  con 
tinued;  "I  didn't  half  see  it." 

John  did  so,  and  observed  the  expert  mak 
ing  rapid  pencilings  on  the  large  sheet  of  blot 
ting  paper  that  lay  on  the  table  in  front  of 
him.  Suspecting  what  was  up,  "  Perhaps  you 
would  like  to  see  my  papers,"  John  said,  and 
produced  his  letters  patent. 

The  expert  seized  the  document,  ran  swiftly 
through  it,  bit  his  lip,  and,  in  the  tone  of  one 
greatly  vexed,  demanded :  "  Who  drew  up 
these  specifications  ?  " 


44  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Mr.  L ,  of  Fall  Biver,"  quietly  replied 

John. 

"  Mr.  L ! "  the  expert  exclaimed  ;  and 

recalled,  but  did  not  mention,  a  case  their 
company  had  had  with  him  in  the  United 

States  Supreme  Court,  which  Mr.  L 

won.  He  thought,  too,  but  did  not  say: 

"  Any  papers  Mr.  L draws  will  hold. 

No  use  sketching  the  model  to  absorb  the 
idea."  Thereupon,  seizing  a  blue  pencil,  he 
blurred  over  the  part  of  the  blotting  paper  he 
had  marked  on,  and  asked :  "  Boy,  what  do 
you  want  for  that  patent  ?  " 

"I  think  it  worth  more,"  John  answered, 
"  but  I  greatly  need  money,  and  I  hoped  I 
might  get  fifteen  thousand  dollars  for  it." 

The  ridicule,  the  scoffing  and  the  unreport- 
able  words  that  ensued  turned  John  almost 
purple,  but  he  uttered  not  a  syllable,  took  up 
his  belongings,  and  made  for  the  elevator. 

"  Shall  lose  my  place  for  doing  it,"  shouted 
the  expert  from  the  door,  "  but  I  '11  give  you 
five." 

John  looked  at  a  slip  of  paper,  obviously 
for  another  address,  said  nothing,  and  pressed 
the  elevator  button. 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          45 

"  What  will  you  take  ? "  asked  the  expert, 
this  time  in  his  blandest  tones. 

"  Ten,  for  I  need  the  money,"  replied  John. 

"  Done,"  concluded  the  expert. 

When  they  reentered  the  office  he  placed  a 
chair  very  courteously  for  John,  and  touched 
one  button  for  a  stenographer,  and  another  for 
their  legal  man.  The  papers  were  quickly 
prepared. 

"  How  would  you  like  the  money  ?  "  inquired 
the  expert,  still  most  courteously. 

John,  without  indicating  his  reason,  had 
prepared  himself  for  this  question  by  sundry 
inquiries  of  Mr.  L about  money  trans 
actions,  and  quietly  answered :  "  Half  in 
currency,  please;  certified  check  for  the  bal 
ance." 

"Sudden?"  asked  the  president,  to  whom 
the  expert  took  the  papers  for  approval. 

"Boy  had  the  other  company's  address; 
blood  was  up;  is  a  corker;  they'd  have  had 
it  in  half  an  hour,"  said  the  expert,  who 
knew  that  the  president  prized  brevity  of 
speech. 

"  Worth  it  ?  "  continued  the  president. 

"  Ten  times  over,"  replied  the  expert.    "  Dis- 


46  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

charge  me  if  it  does  not  prove  one  of  our  best 
paying  instruments." 

The  steamer  Pilgrim  made  Watch  Hill  with 
her  usual  celerity,  not  long  after  the  next 
midnight.  Then  she  ran  into  fog,  breasted 
rollers,  and  had  to  feel  her  way  around  Point 
Judith  and  up  Narragansett  Bay  as  best  she 
might.  Not  until  six  in  the  morning,  two 
hours  late,  did  she  make  her  dock.  The  first 
person  to  cross  her  gangplank  was  a  boy 
who  had  been  up  since  three,  to  whom  the 
delay  had  been  torture,  but  who  now  sped 
ashore  like  a  greyhound,  and  who  did  not 
once  pause  till  he  broke  in  on  the  Hope 
family,  just  sitting  down  to  breakfast.  He 
said  not  one  word.  He  took  from  an  inner 
pocket  five  crisp  one-thousand  dollar  bills,  and 
a  cashier's  check  on  the  bank  of  largest  assets 
in  New  York  City  for  five  thousand  more. 
These  he  laid  down  in  front  of  his  mother's 
plate,  and  hid  his  face  in  her  bosom. 

Had  you  heard  William  Hope  pray  at 
family  worship  that  morning,  before  he 
started  for  the  looms,  you  would  have  under 
stood  some  things.  Not  in  vain  had  that  boy 
been  longed  for,  expected  and  prayed  for, 


John  Hope,  Weaver's  Son          47 

that  terrible  winter  so  long  ago.  Through 
him  was  beginning  to  come  that  which  John 
had  spoken  of,  in  his  prayer  about  the  inven 
tion,  as  "  a  way  out  for  us  all." 


Ill 


HE    EEGISTEKS    A    VOW,    AND    CHOOSES    HIS 
WEAPON 

ITH  four  thousand  dollars, 
after  school,  the  afternoon 
following  his  return  from 
New  York,  John  Hope  bought  the  home  he 
long  had  selected  for  his  mother  and  father. 
He  expected  it  would  have  cost  five  thousand, 
but,  for  cash,  the  owner  was  glad  to  take  four. 
The  six  thousand  remaining  from  the  sale  of 
his  invention,  he  judiciously  invested  under 
Mr.  L 's  direction. 

The  next  week,  though  amidst  terms,  he 
entered  Phillips  Academy,  Andover ;  and  Dr. 
Bancroft,  who  loved  him  from  first  sight,  be 
gan  doing  for  him  what,  for  eight  and  twenty 
years,  he  ceased  not  to  do  for  boys  by  scores 
and  by  hundreds  until  he  fell  on  sleep.  May 
some  Thomas  Hughes  arise  to  paint  his  por 
trait,  as  Arnold  of  Rugby's  was  painted ! 

Two  years  later,  in  the  winter  before  he 
48 


He  Registers  a  Vow  49 

entered  college,  John  Hope  spent  a  night  in 
Boston.  He  did  so  in  order  to  visit  the 
Prospect  Union  of  Cambridge,  Harvard 
University's  college  for  workingmen.  Under 
the  inspiring  direction  of  Mr.  Ely,  its  founder, 
he  looked  it  carefully  over;  heard  Colonel 
Higginson  tell  the  men  of  the  union  about  the 
attempted  release  of  Anthony  Burns,  the 
fugitive  slave,  in  Boston's  darkest  hour;  sat 
with  the  men  through  the  discussion  that  oc 
cupied  the  remainder  of  their  smoke-talk 
evening,  and,  as  he  left,  assured  Mr.  Ely, — 
who  took  his  pay,  as  he  went  along,  in  hun 
dreds  of  such  testimonies, — that  he  knew  a 
workingman  who,  had  such  opportunities 
been  his  in  youth,  might  have  broken  free, 
and,  instead  of  tending  looms  that  day,  might 
have  been  teaching  history,  perhaps  even  at 
Harvard. 

John  Hope  walked  to  Boston  that  night, 
across  the  West  Boston  Bridge.  He  wished 
to  be  alone  under  the  stars.  Something  had 
happened.  The  evening's  touch  with  a 
prophet  of  the  past,  the  story  of  an  old 
struggle,  the  sight  of  those  eager  workingmen 
and  of  the  young  man,  their  leader,  who  was 

4 


50  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

bringing  them  into  larger  life,  gave  it  back 
ground  and  setting.  What  was  it  that  had 
happened  ? 

He  had  entered  the  office  of  a  large  elec 
trical  concern  late  that  afternoon,  he  knew 
not  why.  Pointing  to  a  certain  instrument, 
he  said  :  "  Would  you  pardon  my  asking — for 
I  have  always  been  interested  in  electricity 
— what  that  device  is  probably  worth  to  its 
owners?"  "Our  company,"  was  the  reply, 
"  pays  an  annual  royalty  on  it  of  fifteen  thou 
sand  dollars  to  the company,  and  that 

cannot  be  half  what  it  earns  them,  not  to 
speak  of  their  own  free  use  of  it." 

This  was  why  he  wished  to  be  alone  under 
the  stars  now.  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  to 
the  left,  stood,  a  pale  specter,  reflecting  the 
city's  light.  The  State  House  dome,  to  the 
right,  rose  silent  over  all.  Silhouetted  against 
the  southern  sky,  loomed  the  towers  of 
Phillips  Brooks'  Trinity  Church  and  her 
sisters.  Behind  him — for  he  often  turned  and 
looked  back — lay  the  ancient  university,  the 
height  and  meaning  of  Memorial  Hall  its 
crown.  Orion,  too,  was  setting  over  Mt. 
Auburn,  the  Westminster  Abbey  of  the 


He  Registers  a  Vow  51 

North  American  continent.  He  drank  it  all 
in.  He  reached  his  hotel.  In  his  room  he 
sat,  with  closed  eyes,  buried  in  tumultuous  and 
deep  thought  until  the  city  clocks,  striking  two, 
aroused  him.  Then  he  kneeled,  and  said  these 
words :  "  O  God,  give  me  poise  and  calm ; 
give  me  wisdom  and  strength ;  and  cause  that 
I  do  not  die  until  I  shall  have  made  the 
economic  system  that  could  so  rob  a  poor 
weaver's  boy  pay  dearly  therefor.  Not 
vindictively,  O  God ;  thou  knowest  my  heart ; 
but  justly,  and  for  everybody's  good.  Amen." 

In  the  strength  of  that  prayer  John  Hope 
went  many  days.  It  had  for  him  all  the 
solemnity  and  binding  force  of  a  vow,  and  at 
the  same  time  all  the  sweetness  and  precious- 
ness  of  a  tryst  with  his  heavenly  Father  at  a 
supreme  moment  of  his  life. 

John  Hope  was  a  son  of  Massachusetts.  As 
such  he  should  have  gone  to  Harvard.  He 
was  proud  of  the  most  ancient  of  American 
universities,  almost  to  the  point  of  mortal 
sin.  He  had  gloried  in  it  from  a  child.  His 
admiration  for  its  president  took  him  to 
Boston  or  to  Cambridge  many  a  time  to  hear 
him  speak.  "  There  is  a  man,"  he  would 


52  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

say? — for  this  son  of  the  weaver  scholar 
divined  what  the  problem  of  modern  education 
is, — "There  is  a  man,  with  every  power  at 
perfect  command,  bent  on  doing  one  great 
and  emergent  thing,  and  doing  it  in  such  wise 
that  the  debt  to  him  of  America,  of  the 
world,  and  of  this  age,  can  never  be  dis 
charged."  This  his  hero  worship,  to  tell  the 
truth,  became  one  of  the  large  impulses  in  his 
own  valiant  fight.  He  liked,  too,  the  quiet 
dignity  of  Harvard,  contrasting  it  with  what, 
in  those  days,  he  called  the  "  Yale  bumptious 
ness."  He  liked  its  high  standards  of  scholar 
ship;  its  even,  cheerful  mood;  its  strong, 
ethical  bent ;  its  touch  with  the  larger  move 
ments  of  citizenship  and  of  human  thought. 
Its  pulpit  and  its  board  of  preachers, — Brooks, 
Hale,  Gordon,  Abbott, — moved  him  im 
mensely.  "  Mornings  in  the  College  Chapel," 
by  the  chairman  of  the  board,  when  it  ap 
peared  later,  became  at  once  a  companion  of 
his  devotions.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Prospect 
Union  especially  appealed  to  him.  But  he 
went,  to  Yale. 

It  came  about  in  this  way.     In  the  March 
before  he  was  graduated  from  Phillips,  he  got 


He  Registers  a  Vow  53 

from.  Dr.  Bancroft  a  three  days'  leave  of 
absence,  and  went  to  New  Haven.  D  wight 
L.  Moody  was  there  for  a  day,  and  found  him. 
D  wight  Hall  and  the  Intercollegiate  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  laid  hold  upon 
him.  He  caught  the  temper  of  the  great 
camp  of  students,  and  got  wings  from  their 
tempest  of  song.  He  went  into  the  Battell 
Chapel,  and  heard  a  thousand  men  say,  "  Our 
Father."  "  If  I  turn  my  back  on  Harvard,  I 
shall  regret  it  all  my  life,"  he  exclaimed. 
"  Oh,  that  each  university  might  learn  from 
the  other !  But  I  am  nearer  here  to  the  great 
academic  heart  of  America,  and  I  must  not  be 
without  it  if  I  am  to  win  my  battle."  His 
vow  was  working  in  him.  He  was  making  a 
preliminary  choice  of  weapons. 

At  Yale,  as  at  Phillips,  he  worked  his  way. 
At  Phillips  he  ran  a  students'  eating-house ;  at 
Yale,  the  cooperative  store.  His  aptitude  for 
business  was  so  great  that  neither  of  these 
undertakings  was  so  much  a  burden  to  him 
as  a  pastime,  and,  from  both,  he  not  only 
paid  his  way,  but  added  considerably  to  his 
capital. 

In  both  of  these  institutions  he  was  one  of 


54  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  better  scholars.  Without  technique 
enough  for  distinction,  he  always,  his  instruc 
tors  felt,  did  excellent  work,  and  laid  a  grip 
on  his  subjects  second  to  that  of  no  student  in 
them. 

He  utilized  his  vacations,  too.  Some  repre 
sentative  journey  was  generally  taken  each 
summer,  besides  two  or  three  happy  weeks 
spent  in  his  old  home.  In  1893,  at  Northfield, 
he  met  Henry  Drummond.  Drummond,  like 
a  loadstone,  drew  him  to  Scotland.  That 
made  him  and  Duncan  McLeod  acquainted, 
and  bosom  friends. 

John  Hope  was  a  social  genius.  He  knew 
everybody.  He  sized  things  up.  He  sensed 
movement  and  spirit,  and  moulded  them 
mightily.  Several  student  reforms  of  his 
time  at  Yale  were  due  to  his  silent  initiative 
and  to  his  modest  leadership.  He  was  busi 
ness  manager  of  the  Yale  football  team.  At 
the  end  of  his  junior  year  he  put  on  the  Skull 
and  Crossbones,  with  their  implied  authentica 
tions  of  power.  When  he  sang  his  last  song 
with  his  class,  dismantled  his  room,  and,  with 
his  heart  in  his  throat,  started  for  New  York, 
what  he  had  done  at  New  Haven  was  of  itself 


He  Registers  a  Vow  55 

a  noble  monument  to  William  and  Mary 
Hope. 

By  means  like  these  he  laid  deep  and 
strong  his  social  foundations.  He  had  a  very 
wide  acquaintance.  It  was  among  the  best. 
Everybody  liked  him.  Everybody  had  confi 
dence  in  him.  Unto  him  that  had  was  given. 
Also,  he  had  learned  to  handle  men,  to  measure 
movements,  to  organize  and  to  impel.  These 
things,  as  he  planned  and  hoped,  were  to  be 
facile  instruments,  ready  to  his  hand,  in  the 
great,  bloodless  war  that  waited. 

But  why  did  he  go  to  New  York  ?  What 
was  to  be  his  life- weapon,  his  calling  ?  Let  us 
glance  back.  The  choice  was  rooted  in  the  past. 

John  Hope  was  an  earnest  Christian.  He 
was  such  from  early  childhood.  All  the  Hope 
children  were.  They  could  not  help  it.  It 
had  been  longed  for,  and  prayed  for,  before 
they  began  to  be.  The  longing  and  praying 
ceased  not  until  their  fulfilment.  But  Will 
iam  and  Mary  Hope  helped  to  answer  their 
prayers.  They  impersonated  Jesus  Christ. 

With  William  Hope  the  whole  subject  was  a 
great  deep.  His  words  about  Christ  and 
about  Christianity  were  few.  Family  worship 


56  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

constituted,  almost  exclusively,  his  vent.  In 
his  comments  on  Scripture,  simple,  apt,  pro 
found,  moving,  and  in  his  prayers,  as  if  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  God,  you  divined  a  lit 
tle  of  what  the  gospel  was  to  him. 

"Higher  Criticism?"   he  once  said  to  Mr. 

L ;  "  thank  God  for  it !    I  read  all  of  it 

I  can  lay  my  hands  on.  I  was  a  higher  critic 
myself,  before  I  knew  there  was  such  a  thing. 
Every  one  to  whom  history  is  more  than  words, 
has  to  be.  But  if  more  of  those  who  write 
on  the  subject,  had  the  Bible  like  iron  in  their 
blood,  it  would  be  a  very  different  writing 
they  would  give  us.  It  is  their  sin,  almost 
their  blasphemy,  that,  without  having  it  in 
their  blood,  they  attempt  tasks  that  otherwise 
no  one  can  fulfil.  What  we  require  is,  not 
less  exhaustive  research,  not  less  candor  and 
fearlessness  in  treating  the  facts,  but  more 
insight,  less  that  is  rash  and  destructive,  more 
that  builds.  The  Bible  is  surcharged  with 
divine  life.  It  cares  very  little  about  the  con 
ductor  it  employs.  It  throws  its  current  along 
poetry,  parable,  fiction,  sinful  men,  peoples 
and  ages ;  even  popular  error  it  does  not  dis 
dain.  All  of  them  become  live  wires." 


He  Registers  a  Vow  57 

Mary  Hope,  on  the  contrary,  was  a  mystic. 
She  was  a  Highland  lass,  a  Menzies,  brought 
to  Massachusetts  in  her  tenth  year.  She  had 
a  singular  poise,  balance,  comprehensiveness 
and  fairness  of  mind  ;  was  intensely  practical ; 
and  yet  lived  daily  as  in  a  higher  world,  and 
walked  with  God. 

To  William  Hope  the  gospel  was  a  philoso 
phy,  the  profoundest,  the  simplest.  It  under- 
ran  history,  and  was  its  key.  The  new 
science,  rightly  taken,  emancipated  it  for  its 
world  work.  Caught  up  into  the  third  heaven, 
in  this  sense,  he  had  heard  unspeakable  words? 
and  his  own  words  were  correspondingly  few. 
A  perpetual  calm,  a  cheerful  trust,  a  daily 
helpfulness,  a  simple  gladness  of  life,  were  his. 
To  Mary  Hope  the  gospel  was  a  daily  pres 
ence  with  her  of  Him  who  drew  nigh  to  the 
Emmaus-going  disciples.  It  was  light,  life, 
vision.  She,  too,  was  reticent  about  religion, 
but  a  sentence  from  her,  now  and  then, 
changed  her  children's  lives. 

Out  of  a  religious  environment  like  this,  so 
deep,  so  real,  so  cheerful,  so  comprehensive, 
John  Hope  very  early  began  pondering,  care 
fully  and  prayerfully,  the  question,  how  he 


58  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

might  sell  his  life  dearest.  To  be  a  foreign 
missionary,  to  bring  Christ  where  he  had 
never  been  heard  of,  would  have  been  his  su 
preme  delight.  To  be  a  minister  would  have 
been  his  second  choice.  To  be  a  Christian 
worker,  among  young  men,  for  example,  or  in 
the  slums,  would  have  been  his  third.  His  no 
tion  of  what  might  be  accomplished  by  min 
ister,  or  Christian  worker,  completely  devoted  to 
his  work,  was  very  high.  This  was  one  of  the 
things  that  drew  him  to  Henry  Drummond. 

But  John  Hope  did  not  feel  at  liberty  so  to 
indulge  himself.  He  had  not  visited  the  New 
York  tenement  houses  yearly  for  nothing. 
Not  in  vain  had  he  heard  his  father  tell,  after 
such  visits,  the  kind  of  monument  that  his 
mother  and  father  coveted.  He  knew,  too, 
where  the  center  of  the  battle,  in  his  time, 
lay;  namely,  in  the  industrial-economic  situ 
ation.  He  felt  great  powers  therefor,  already 
stirring  within  him  ;  and  even  before  his  elec 
trical  invention  he  was  beginning  to  be  con 
scious,  like  young  David  of  old,  of  the  divine 
summons  to  go  down  into  the  small  and  fal 
tering  camp  that  was  gathering  against  the 
Philistines. 


He  Registers  a  Vow  59 

He  had  as  little  faith,  ultimately,  in  labor 
organizations,  as  in  the  great  combinations  of 
capital.  He  appreciated  the  arguments  for 
them ;  he  repeatedly  sided  with  them ;  but  he 
failed  to  discern,  amid  their  so  different  atti 
tudes  and  points  of  view,  any  intrinsic  differ 
ence  of  principle.  "  When  the  Carpenter  of 
Nazareth  gets  a  Union  on  its  feet,"  he  would 
say,  "capitalists  will  be  in  it;  and  artisans 
will  be  in  it ;  and  which  is  which  will  be 
hardly  discernible ;  and  one  great,  good  vic 
tory,  it  may  be  in  some  isolated  place,  will 
become  a  contagion,  like  Bannockburn,  where 
the  armored  knights  went  down  before  the 
pikemen,  and  the  solid  squares  could  not  be 
broken.  But  with  the  pikemen  were  the  best 
blood  and  strongest  estates  of  Scotland,  the 
twain  at  one  in  a  common  love  of  country  and 
of  God.  No  large  emancipation  ever  came 
otherwise." 

For  like  reasons  John  Hope  steered  clear  of 
civics  organizations,  and  good  government 
clubs.  "  They  are  a  sign  of  the  times,"  he 
would  say ;  "  I  am  glad  for  them  ;  but  I  would 
give  more  for  liquor  put  out  of  a  city  of  con 
siderable  size,  and  partisanship  put  out  of  its 


60  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

politics,  and  idealism  seizing  on  all  classes  of 
its  people,  and  a  chance  for  workingmen,  such 
as  Cambridge  and  its  Prospect  Union  afford  an 
example  of, — by  no  means  an  isolated  ex 
ample,  either, — than  for  the  whole  roster  of 
them.  Not,  of  course,"  he  would  add,  "  that 
organization  and  agitation  have  not  their 
place;  but  a  proposition  put  into  flesh  and 
blood,  into  a  clean  city,  and  into  a  city  hall  fit 
to  be  a  sanctuary,  is  worth  a  thousand  of 
them." 

Among  business  possibilities,  electricity  was 
his  chief  attraction.  The  gross  wrong  that  had 
been  done  him  in  the  matter  of  his  invention 
did  not  deter  him.  It  never  ceased,  indeed,  to 
hurt.  The  hurt  neither  embittered  him,  nor 
made  him  vindictive.  Ever  present  with  him, 
however,  was  that  prayer  on  Beacon  Hill,  in 
his  Phillips  Academy  days,  that  he  might 
make  a  system  that  was  capable  of  such  an 
act,  pay  dearly  for  it,  though  in  righteousness 
and  for  the  good  of  all.  No ;  he  wanted  to 
go  into  electricity  because  he  loved  it ;  because 
he  had  power  in  it ;  because  its  possibilities 
were  only  beginning  to  be  developed  ;  and  be 
cause  it  would  be  sweet  to  get  his  holy  venge- 


He  Registers  a  Vow  61 

ance  within,  and  not  outside,  its  citadel.  But 
he  knew  how  it  was  organized.  He  knew 
about  the  telephone  girls,  and  the  tramway 
employees.  He  knew  its  hold  on  legislatures 
and  city  councils,  and  its  seductions  of  courts. 
He  did  not  despair  even  of  it ;  but  he  knew 
that  it  was  good  strategy  to  engage  the  enemy 
in  the  open,  not  intrenched  and  fortified  as 
electricity  was. 

This  matter  of  "  the  open  "  led  him  to  the 
Kocky  Mountains  and  to  mining.  Theodore 
Koosevelt's  ranch  and  hunting  life  first  drew 
his  attention  to  the  general  area.  He  visited  it 
during  a  summer  vacation  in  his  college  days. 
He  lost  his  heart  to  it,  like  the  Semites  to 
Arabia  and  to  Sinai.  After  a  seemingly  inter 
minable  ocean  of  prairie,  growing  more  and 
more  arid  and  brown,  to  behold  the  far-off 
peaks,  like  flecks  of  cloud  along  the  horizon ; 
to  enter  their  presence,  a  north-and-south  run 
ning  line  of  turrets  and  battlements,  discerni 
ble,  in  the  dry,  clear  air,  a  hundred  miles  to 
the  north  and  as  far  to  the  south ;  to  ascend 
the  canons,  and  find  one's  self  amid  a  sea  of 
eroded  and  snowy  peaks,  with  their  diversified 
colors,  their  grimness,  their  austerity,  their 


62  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

scant  vegetation,  their  wonder  of  cliffs,  canon 
walls  and  mineral  outcroppings ;  and  to  come 
under  the  spell  of  a  remote,  heroic,  unrecorded 
past,  suggested  only  by  the  fortified  eyries  of 
the  cliff  dwellers,  and  under  the  spell  of  the 
future,  as  at  the  Divide  of  the  "World,  set  be 
twixt  the  Orient  and  the  Occident,  and  potent 
for  the  weal  or  woe  of  both, — all  this  drew 
him  with  a  fascination  that  was  almost  weird. 
When,  in  his  Scottish  journey,  he  came  to 
know  and  to  love  Duncan  McLeod,  and 
learned  from  him,  as  an  expert,  the  possibili 
ties  of  the  region,  and,  above  all,  found  in 
him  a  kindred  spirit,  eager  to  join  him  in  ex 
ploiting  them, — the  die  was  cast.  He  had 
chosen  his  weapon. 


TWO  WOMEN  OF  STIELING 

MAN  may  undertake  to 
follow  Jesus  Christ,  and 
fail  him.  Judas  did. 

A  man  may  undertake 
to  follow  him,  and  fall 
into  a  routine  of  good 
living,  in  itself  admirable  but  lacking  that 
distinctive  daily  initiative  and  renewal  of  life 
which  go  with  the  truest  discipleship.  Such 
a  one,  however  excellent,  abides  but  too  scant 
ily  in  the  Vine. 

A  man  may,  on  the  other  hand,  strenuously 
follow  him,  and  fall  into  morbidness  or  eccen 
tricity.  Such  a  one — who  may,  or  who  may 
not,  develop  into  large  things — forgets  the  say 
ing  about  the  greatest  of  the  prophets  who 
was  little  in  the  kingdom,  and  the  saying,  "My 
peace  I  give  unto  you." 

At  the  time  when  this  history  encounters 

Duncan  McLeod  and  John  Hope,  it  was  im- 
-       63 


64  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

possible  that  either  of  them  should  fail  Jesus 
Christ.  They  were  men  of  large  capacity,  a 
noble  record  thus  far,  and  that  record  only 
begun.  It  was  inconceivable  that  either  of 
them  should  prove  false  or  disloyal,  or  should 
fail,  according  to  their  lights,  to  come  to  the 
most,  and  to  do  the  most.  But  the  other  two 
perils,  like  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  were  before 
them;  and  one  of  them  had  long  been 
searched,  and  the  other  of  them  was  being 
searched,  by  that  Spirit  which  alone  adequately 
knows  the  things  of  spirit. 

For  the  wonderful  thing  about  following 
Jesus  Christ  is,  that  this  relation,  while  it  fully 
suffices  moment  by  moment,  runs  ahead  of  one 
ever,  like  a  horizon  ;  and  the  farther  one  goes 
the  larger  it  becomes,  and  the  more  absolute 
and  yet  glad  become  its  imperatives  upon  the 
soul.  This,  its  expansive  power,  or  its  infini 
tude,  meets  the  problem  of  immortality.  With 
out  this,  to  live  always  were  a  doom;  with 
it,  to  live  always  were  bliss  just  of  itself. 

There  is  at  Stirling,  in  Scotland,  a  retired 
street,  full  of  modest,  trim  houses,  with 
immaculate  window  glass,  spotless  curtains, 
very  bright  door-knobs  and  door-plates,  and 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  65 

flowers  in  the  window  seats  that  seem  peren 
nially  blooming.  Like  Wordsworth  coveting 
Dove  Cottage  when  he  first  saw  Grasmere, 
you  can  hardly  resist  leasing  one  of  them,  and 
beginning  to  live.  From  this  street  you  look 
upward  one  way  to  the  castle,  and  the  other 
way  toward  the  Wallace  Monument  crowning 
Abbey  Craig. 

In  that  house  which  you  would  specially 
choose  to  lease,  because  everything  about 
it  is  so  fresh,  and  its  flowers  are  so  bright, 
and  its  firelight  at  dusk  is  so  inviting,  flick 
ering  on  the  half-drawn  curtains — in  that 
house  a  woman,  a  bit  past  middle  life,  but 
erect,  tall,  her  hair  still  dark,  her  eyes,  eyes 
that  hold  you,  her  face  a  benediction,  moves  to 
ward  the  windows,  draws  the  curtains,  lights 
a  lamp,  and  sits  down  before  a  large  open 
Bible.  Over  it  she  bows  her  head  some  mo 
ments,  as  in  prayer;  then  she  turns  to  the 
Ninety-first  Psalm,  and  reads  it  aloud.  Her 
face,  as  she  reads,  Kaphael  should  have  seen. 
Peace,  as  after  storm,  is  there,  calm,  trust, 
hope,  expectation,  holy  confidence.  It  seems 
almost  aflame,  as  from  an  altar,  when  she 
concludes : 
5 


66  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"Because  he  hath  set  his  love  upon  me,  there 
fore  will  I  deliver  him  : 

I  will  set  him  on  high,  because  he  hath  known 
my  name. 

He  shall  call  upon  me,  and  I  will  answer  him  ; 

I  will  be  with  him  in  trouble  : 

I  will  deliver  him,  and  honor  him. 

With  long  life  will  I  satisfy  him, 

And  show  him  my  salvation." 

Then  she  takes  from  her  bosom  a  letter,  care 
fully  unfolds  it,  spreads  it  out  on  the  open 
page  of  the  Bible  in  the  full  light,  and  reads 
it,  seeming  to  devour  every  word,  though  this 
is  its  seventh  perusal  since  it  came  that  morn 
ing.  This  is  what  she  reads  : 

"  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  October  20. 

"  This,  mother  dear,  will  be  a  long  letter. 

"  I  have  been  meaning  to  tell  you  of  Douglas 
Campbell.  He  is  so  reserved  and  modest  I 
fear  the  wife  gets  little  notion  from  him  how 
well  he  is  doing.  May  I  trouble  you  to  slip 
out  to  St.  Ninian  and  tell  her  ?  He  surprises 
me.  No  man  in  the  levels  equals  him.  He 
had  it  all  to  learn,  too,  but  there  is  no  old-timer 
that  cannot  now  learn  from  him.  All,  more 
over,  is  with  such  intelligence.  ISTot  an  emer 
gency  arises  but  Douglas  knows  how  to  meet 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  67 

it.  Every  one  likes  him.  He  is  the  subject  of 
frequent  favorable  remark  in  the  management. 
His  lack  of  early  training  is  against  him,  but 
he  is  studying  very  hard,  not  only  mining 
engineering,  but  literature  and  history.  He 
fairly  nips  them  up.  Tell  his  Margaret  that  I 
expect  ere  many  months  a  promotion  for  him 
which  will  mean  good  prospects  for  her  and 
the  bairns,  removal  to  Colorado,  and,  perhaps, 
a  holiday  for  him  at  Stirling,  he  coming  him 
self  to  fetch  them  across. 

"  Since  he  is  as  likely  as  myself  to  be  a 
fixture  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  let  me  re 
fresh  your  memory  and  add  some  new  facts 
about  it.  Margaret  will  prize  them,  though  a 
part  of  what  I  say  may  be  familiar  to  you. 

"  Our  ore,  as  it  runs,  is  of  a  high  grade.  It 
is  refractory,  and  is  therefore  crushed  here, 
and  submitted  to  chemical  treatment  for  get 
ting  out  the  gold  and  silver.  The  vein  is  very 
thick ;  increases  in  richness  as  we  go  down ; 
from  the  lay  of  the  rock,  and  the  way  we  have 
engineered,  the  ore  is  gotten  out  with  excep 
tional  readiness;  though  refractory,  it  yields 
to  treatment  surprisingly  well ;  and,  best  of 
all,  as  we  know  from  conclusive  tests,  the  sup- 


68  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ply  is  practically  inexhaustible.  Moreover, 
there  are  occasional  pockets  of  very  rich  ore, 
which  we  ship  to  the  smelters  for  treatment ; 
and  the  indications  are  that  such  deposits  will 
be  found  more  abundant  as  development  work 
advances. 

"  The  mine's  equipment  is  perfect.  Electric 
lighting  only  is  wanting.  That,  both  above 
and  below  ground,  has  been  contracted  for,  and 
will  be  installed  in  January.  Mr.  Hope,  who 
keeps  abreast  of  electricity, — alas,  already  an 
cient  history  to  me  ! — says  he  is  glad  we  have 
waited  for  it,  such  improvements  have,  even 
within  this  year,  been  made  in  it.  And  this 
reminds  me  to  say,  that  our  management  is  as 
keen  on  every  mechanical  and  chemical  im 
provement,  as  in  this  matter  of  the  lighting. 
Everything  is  kept  up.  Expense  is  not  spared. 
It  pays,  too.  Its  effect  on  every  worker  is  like 
wine. 

"  As  for  our  force,  there  is  not  a  better  at 
any  mine  in  the  world ;  and  you  will  remem 
ber  that  I  have  seen  the  best  mines  in  Aus 
tralia  and  South  Africa.  You  would  think  the 
men  were  all  stockholders  in  the  company, 
such  is  their  pride  in  the  works,  and  their  zest 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  69 

at  their  tasks.  Our  product  goes  away  from 
us  in  composite  bars ;  that  is  to  say,  the  gold 
is  left  to  be  separated  from  the  silver  by  the 
refiners,  who  also  remove  slight  impurities; 
but  the  bars,  as  they  leave  us,  are  almost  pure 
gold  and  silver.  I  am  myself  surprised  at  how 
nearly  the  total  ounces  we  get  credit  for  tally 
with  the  total  weight  of  the  bars  as  we  ship 
them ;  also,  at  the  accuracy  with  which  we  are 
able  to  gauge  the  relative  amounts  of  gold  and 
silver  in  the  bars.  Between  my  mother  and 
me,  wo  have  not  only  the  costliest  and  most 
accurate  instruments,  but  a  certain  metallur 
gist  at  the  works  has  modified  the  chemical 
process  of  extracting,  on  which  we  pay  a  very 
considerable  royalty,  to  an  advantage  which 
more  than  offsets  the  royalty  bills. 

"  But  I  was  speaking  of  the  men.  Our  bars 
accumulate  to  a  high  value  between  shipments, 
but  we  take  scarcely  any  precautions  against 
the  theft  of  them  or  of  our  rich  ore.  Some 
householders  are  as  careful  of  their  coal-bins 
as  we  are  of  our  ore  and  bar  storage.  Why  so 
little  caution  ?  It  is  tonic  to  the  men.  They 
see  that  they  are  trusted,  and  you  can  get 
anything  from  men  you  trust.  Moreover,  we 


jo  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

know  all  our  men,  and  they  are  not  only  hon 
est,  but  are  themselves  a  detective  force  and 
guards  for  us. 

"  Best  of  all,  mother,  one  after  another  they 
are  coming  to  the  Light.  Douglas  is  our  Bar 
nabas  for  that.  He  is  so  slow  of  speech,  as 
you  know,  that  one  rarely  gets  two  consecu 
tive  sentences  from  him ;  but  Drummond  him 
self  had  hardly  a  truer  genius  for  saving  men. 
More  than  half  our  force  are  Christians  already, 
but  we  have  not  held  a  public  service  yet. 
'  ISTot  with  observation,  but  within  you,'  is  our 
motto.  By  and  by  we  shall  have  a  church 
here,  and  every  man  in  it,  and  you  and  I  know 
who  will  be  its  minister. 

"To  end  this  summary:  Our  stock  is  not 
listed  for  the  stock  market.  ISTone  of  it  is  for 
sale.  Only  a  half  dozen  men  own  it.  They 
have  the  name  of  being  honorable  men.  Mr. 
Hope, — no,  let  us  have  done  with  <  handles,' 
for  we  call  each  other  by  our  first  names, — 
John  Hope  organized  the  company ;  and  you 
know,  from  what  you  will  recall  of  his  visit  at 
our  house  when  I  was  on  my  holiday,  what 
kind  of  men  John  would  get  around  him. 
One  may,  indeed,  mistake  a  man.  A  storm 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  71 

may,  perhaps,  brew.  They  have  as  yet  unlim 
ited  confidence  in  him,  and  are  more  than  glad 
to  second  his  every  suggestion.  Why  not? 
Dividends  are  large,  and  increase  quarterly. 
Will  they,  however,  follow  him  into  a  larger 
success  than  dividends  can  register?  For, 
nothing  short  of  that,  my  mother,  is  his  ambi 
tion  for  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

"Ye '11  be  verra  patient,  I  ken,  wij  a*  the 
speech  I  was  makin'  aboot  the  mine,  like  the 
gude  mither  ye  always  were ;  but  I  doot  ye  11 
be  muckle  weary  wi'  it,  and  so,  without  a  mo 
ment's  further  delay,  here  is  a  sugar-plum  as 
reward.  A  letter  received  from  John,  one  of 
the  days  I  was  in  bed,  written  from  New  York, 
said  that  the  stockholders  had  just  unani 
mously  voted  the  last  ten  shares  of  the  stock 
to  the  metallurgist  aforesaid,  '  for  services  ren 
dered.'  That  metallurgist  has,  as  you  know, 
an  excellent  salary  now,  but  the  dividends  on 
that  block  of  stock — for  there  are  only  one 
hundred  shares  in  all — will  make  his  salary 
look  small.  So,  mother  dear,  you  are  coming, 
you  know,  to  Colorado  next  summer,  and  will 
see  your  laddie,  and  our  mountains,  which  I 
can  never  trust  myself  to  write  about,  they  so 


72  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

move  me.    Then  you  will  be  able  to  say,  with 
out  loving  Ben  Lomond  less : 

11 1 1  have  seen  you  in  the  morning, 

Sixty  leagues  of  crimson  towers ; 
I  have  seen  you  in  your  purple 
And  gold  of  the  evening  hours. 

"  '  I  have  seen  your  peaks  clear-cut, 
'Gainst  the  terrible  deep  blue 
Of  skies  without  a  cloud, 
That  God  seemed  looking  through. 

" '  I  have  seen  you  when  the  lightnings 
Clove  your  granite  and  your  pine, 
And  the  thunder  shook  the  canons, 
And  shook  this  soul  of  mine. 

"  '  I  have  seen  you,  billow  on  billow, 

In  the  mists  that  disclose  you  each, 
Divide,  and  mountain,  and  foothill, 
As  an  ocean  looks  from  the  beach.'  " 

Here  the  woman  takes  off  her  glasses,  clears 
them,  sings, 

"I  to  the  hills  will  lift  mine  eyes," 

and  resumes : 

"  I  was  in  bed  when  the  news  came,  as  I 
said,  and  I  fear  that  the  Lady  Stirling  will  be 
thinking,  '  In  bed,  laddie,  an'  in  ye'r  workin' 
'oors  ?  Min'  ye  no  what  the  Wise  Man  will 
be  sayin',  "  So  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  one 
that  travelleth,  and  thy  want  as  an  armed 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  73 

man  "  ? '  But,  mother  dear,  there  was  cause. 
It  got  into  the  newspapers,  else  neither  Mar 
garet  Campbell  nor  Janet  McLeod  had  ever 
known.  For  some  Scot  will  send  marked 
copies  to  the  Stirling  papers,  and  Bruce  had 
better  chance  to  hold  the  town  against  Ed 
ward,  than  any  man  to  guard  his  privacy 
against  the  press.  So  Duncan  shall  himself 
tell  you  both. 

"  It  was  in  the  afternoon,  at  the  four  o'clock 
shift.  All  the  men  were  up  save  Douglas, — 
the  man  will  always  be  doing  overwork, — and 
none  had  descended.  He  was  in  the  top  level, 
which  is  only  thirty  feet  down  the  shaft. 
That  level  is  a  short  one.  He  wanted  to  fin 
ish  a  bore  he  was  making  at  its  end,  which  re 
quired  but  a  few  moments  longer.  A  large 
amount  of  giant  powder  was  near  the  mouth 
of  his  level,  waiting  there  to  be  taken  down 
for  charging  bores  in  several  lower  levels  early 
in  the  next  shift.  In  some  way  or  other  it 
went  off.  The  hoisting  windlass  was  blown 
out,  but  some  one  instantly  thrust  a  ladder 
down  to  the  edge  of  Douglas'  level.  A  hun 
dred  men  would  have  descended,  but  they 
thought  they  would  suffocate,  because  the 


74  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

level,  being  short,  would  be  filled  with  poison 
ous  gases. 

"  At  the  shaft's  mouth,  when  I  reached  it 
five  minutes  later, — for  I  supposed  not  a  man 
would  be  down,  and  so  I  finished  the  test  I 
was  on,  which  could  not  be  interrupted  with 
out  loss  to  the  company, — 't  was  a  fight  to 
have  my  way,  but  I  had  it.  Do  you  mind 
your  chiding  me  for  my  feats  in  under- water 
swimming  at  the  Forth  Bridge  ?  They  saved 
Douglas.  You  have  but  to  aerate  your  blood 
enough,  and  you  may  play  whale.  But  you 
should  first  pump  your  lungs  slowly  for  ten 
minutes  at  the  least.  I  so  feared  for  Douglas 
that  I  took  only  two,  and  did  it  rapidly,  and 
this  nearly  finished  us  both. 

"  The  day  before,  as  God  mercifully  ordered 
it,  I  had  spent  a  half  hour  with  Douglas  in  the 
level,  and  somehow  or  other  had  noted  every 
thing  about  it.  Well  was  it  that  I  did  so,  for 
when,  my  head  swathed  in  wet  blankets,  I 
reached  the  end  of  the  level  where  Douglas 
should  be,  he  was  not  there.  Then  I  remem 
bered  a  crevice  a  bit  back,  ran  to  it,  found  him 
wedged  into  it, — for  he  was  on  his  way  to  the 
shaft  when  the  explosion  came, — had  him  to 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  75* 

the  ladder,  that  leaned  across  six  hundred 
sheer  feet  of  shaft,  and  there  lost  all  strength. 
Prayer.  Climbed  half  the  ladder.  Tottered. 
Prayer.  Was  up.  Got  my  breath.  He  lived. 

"  We  are  both  well  now,  mother.  He  that 
was  with  Duncan  McLeod  at  the  Battle  of  the 
Nile,  and  with  his  son  Duncan  at  Lucknow, 
was  that  day  with  the  third  Duncan  over  the 
yawning  abyss.  Tell  Margaret  that  her  man 
put  the  hammer  beyond  any  at  the  sports  last 
Saturday ;  and  tell  her  not,  but  tell  yourself, 
for  ye'r  ain  comfort,  that  the  metallurgist 
stood  off  two  men  with  the  gloves  the  same 
day." 

Here  Janet  McLeod  bows  over  her  Bible, 
and,  in  passing  her  windows,  you  might  hear  the 
cadences  though  not  the  words  of  her  thanks 
giving.  Then  she  reads  the  letter's  trenchant 
ending,  liker  Duncan,  with  his  weird  Highland 
temper,  than  any  of  the  rest : 

"  My  mother,  think  me  not  eerie ;  but,  when 
I  lost  strength  at  the  ladder's  foot,  I  saw  Mar 
garet  and  her  bairns,  in  the  wee  cottage  at  St. 
Ninian,  clear  as  I  ever  saw  you  before  our 
grate  by  the  lamp  in  the  gloaming. 

"But  the  days  I  was  in  bed  I  saw  more  than 


76  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that.  Much  work  has  been  mine  these  years, 
but  little  thinking.  In  those  days  of  lying 
still,  I  made  up  for  it.  Better  was  this  to  me 
than  the  ten  shares  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

"  I  had  two  thoughts.  One  was  of  a  woman. 
I  found  out  a  thing  I  did  not  know.  If  a 
young  person,  fair  and  tall,  and  comparable  to 
none  I  know  but  Janet  McLeod,  shall  look  into 
our  small  house,  God  will  have  sent  her,  and 
all  will  be  well.  Grant  her,  I  pray  you,  my 
mother,  aught  she  shall  ask.  But,  if  she  come 
not,  God  means  otherwise. 

"  The  other  thought  was  of  Duncan  Mc- 
Leod's  life.  Conscientious,  clean,  effective, 
doing.  Aught  more?  Fruits  of  the  Spirit? 
Mind  of  Christ  ?  No.  Emptiness  all !  This 
is  not  like  Henry  Drummond  (who,  forget  not, 
was  a  lone  man,  as  I  have  thought  to  be),  nor 
like  that  Life  which  is  the  Light  of  men. 

"  Could  Janet  McLeod,  in  this  sair  matter, 
help  in  any  wise  the  laddie  she  bore  ? 
"  Ever  adoringly  hers, 

"  DUNCAN  MCLEOD." 

Just  as  the  mother  concludes  the  reading, 
she  hears  a  voice  of  singular  depth  and  sweet- 


Two  Women  of  Stirling  77 

ness  saying,  "  James,' call  for  me  a  half  hour 
later,  please,"  followed  by  the  departing  of 
wheels,  and  a  step  on  the  porch.  To  her  de 
vout  mind  it  is  as  God's  angel,  in  answer  to 
her  instant  prayer  since  she  first  read  her  son's 
letter. 

She  opens  the  door,  and  welcomes  her  visi 
tor  with  a  dignity,  a  reserve,  a  gentleness  and 
a  warmth  that  no  one  but  Duncan's  "  Lady 
Stirling  "  could  command. 

The  two  women  sit  then  in  silence.  Neither 
is  embarrassed.  They  understand*  As  you 
look  from  one  to  the  other,  you  cannot  keep 
the  Sistine  Madonna  and  Murillo's  master 
piece  at  the  Louvre  out  of  mind. 

"  God  be  with  you,  Kathleen !  "  at  length 
says  Dresden. 

"  Thank  you,  Mrs.  McLeod,  more  than  I  can 
tell,"  answers  the  Louvre. 

Then,  after  a  stillness  that  speaks  more  than 
words,  the  long  lashes  lift,  the  eyes  look 
frankly  out,  face  and  throat  glow,  the  lips 
part,  and  they  say,  "  Mrs.  McLeod,  will  you 
kiss  me  ?  " 

The  women  rise.  They  are  in  each  other's 
arms.  Then  they  sit  with  shining  faces. 


78  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

There  is  nothing  more,  and  yet  everything, 
until  the  rumbling  of  wheels.    Then  Kathleen 


"  Would  it  be  wrong,  Mrs.  McLeod,  do  you 
think,  if  we  exchanged  letters  ?  " 

The  letters  change  places,  hands  tightly 
clasp,  neither  can  speak,  the  wheels  ascend  the 
heights  of  Stirling,  and  Janet  McLeod  is  on 
her  knees. 


THE  MAKING   OF   A   SCOT 


<!?A:NET  MCLEOD  was  too 

|  wise  a  woman  to  infer 
from  the  tender  moments 
in  her  little  parlor  that 
the  battle  was  won.  She 
greatly  feared,  on  the 
contrary,  that  it  was  lost. 
Therefore  the  importu 
nity  of  her  prayer  when 
Kathleen  Gordon  had 
gone.  It  was  with  strong 
crying  and  tears.  Had 
you  heard  it,  you  would  have  known  more 
about  Duncan  McLeod  and  his  spiritual  inher 
itance  than  this  history  can  tell. 

Now  she  is  sitting  before  her  open  Bible 
again.  Her  face  has  in  it  the  look  at  once  of 
solicitude  and  triumph.  She  has  laid  Duncan's 
letter  to  Kathleen  upon  the  pages,  which  are 

open  at  the  story  of  Isaac  and  Kebekah.     But 
79 


80  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

she  will  not  read  it, until  she  has  cleared  her 
thinking  after  the  tumult  of  the  day,  and  es 
pecially  of  the  evening. 

Neither  Duncan  nor  his  mother  was  super 
stitious.  They  both  had,  nevertheless,  a  cer 
tain  second-sight.  Janet  dated  it,  more  espe 
cially  in  her  own  case  and  in  her  son's,  from 
Duncan's  reaching  the  age  of  twelve.  They 
had,  in  that  year,  studied  together  the  child 
hood  of  Jesus.  The  mother  wanted  her  boy 
to  be  as  like  as  possible  to  the  Boy  of  twelve 
in  the  temple.  She  was  working  out  in  her 
own  mind,  too,  and  sharing  it  with  her  child, 
a  way  for  the  natural  boy  Jesus  to  become  the 
Jesus  of  the  ministry.  She  was  too  keen  to 
accept,  as  the  study  went  on,  any  "double 
personality"  theory.  Mary's  son,  she  knew, 
was  as  really  a  boy  as  Duncan,  and  as  really  a 
man  as  her  hero  of  the  Indian  Mutiny.  But, 
as  she  assuredly  believed,  and  as  her  profound- 
est  insight  taught  her,  he  was  also  God.  How, 
then,  came  the  transition  between  Jesus  at 
twelve  in  the  temple,  and  Jesus  some  twenty 
years  later  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration, 
and  as  sought  by  the  Greeks  ? 

Using  child's  language,  and  reasoning  as 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  81 

a  well  endowed  child  might,  they  meditated 
this  subject  for  weeks,  coming  by  slow  stages 
to  an  inference.  Janet's  Scripture  for  the  in 
ference — for  this  Scotch  woman  had  a  habit 
of  tying  every  serious  thing  to  her  Bible — was 
the  words :  "  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with 
them  that  fear  him." 

Whatever  more  there  was  in  Jesus,  they 
said  to  themselves,  a  boy  and  a  man  were  in 
him.  To  that  which  he  became,  the  boy's  and 
the  man's  behavior  was  the  key.  God  him 
self  could  not  have  made  the  Jesus  of  the 
transfiguration,  and  the  Jesus  whom  the 
Greeks  sought,  except  the  boy  and  the  man 
had  done  their  part.  Nor  was  it  an  easy 
thing  for  the  boy  and  the  man  to  attain  to 
such  behavior.  It  was  a  boy's  and  a  man's 
fight.  Might  not  every  boy  and  man  approx 
imate  such  a  fight  ? 

To  this  principle  mother  and  son  thenceforth 
shaped  their  lives.  Both  set  themselves  to  be 
always  about  their  Father's  business.  Both 
set  themselves  to  supply  the  simple  but  pro 
found  conditions  of  character  and  of  spiritual 
life.  They  were,  as  they  deemed,  to  be  sim 
ple-hearted,  human,  joyous.  Had  not  Jesus 


82  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

known  children's  games  ?  But  they  were  to 
work,  nevertheless,  the  works  of  Him  that 
sent  them.  As  they  were  much  in  prayer, 
would  not  God  also  speak  to  them  ?  This 
was  their  belief ;  and  they  believed,  from  time 
to  time,  in  no  overwrought  way,  that  God  did 
so  speak.  What  he  said  to  them,  or  seemed 
to  say,  was  mainly  in  the  range  of  duties 
made  clear  and  sweet  to  them,  of  inner  com 
fort  and  of  inspiration  for  living.  But  not  al 
ways.  To  these  true,  earnest,  God-acquainted 
persons,  the  veil  of  the  future,  at  times,  seemed 
also  to  lift. 

They  were  both  certain,  for  example,  during 
Duncan's  getting  ready  for  Edinburgh,  that 
the  way  which  looked  a  blank  wall  would 
open  thither,  though  neither  divined  how. 
Similarly,  during  his  undergraduate  years, 
both  came  to  know  that  the  Christian  minis 
try,  for  which  he  had  been  intended,  would 
not  be  his,  though  they  hardly  knew  why.  As 
little  did  they  know  what  other  work  was  for 
him.  Janet  knew,  too,  and  presently  Duncan 
knew,  that  his  work  would  lie  largely  in  foreign 
lands,  and  his  reading  thenceforth  included 
many  volumes  of  travels.  The  value,  both  to 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  83 

mother  and  son,  of  these  foreknowings, — 
which  had  not  a  tinge  of  superstition  or  of 
fatalism  in  them,  but  which  were  as  simple 
and  natural  and  joyous  as  the  praying  of  the 
two, — no  one  could  measure.  Their  purpose, 
their  preparation, — as  in  this  reading  of 
travels, — and  their  faith,  focused  at  these  as 
yet  unverified  certainties  of  the  future  with  a 
love  and  passion  tonic  and  inspiring.  Faith 
was,  indeed,  for  them,  the  "assurance  of  things 
hoped  for." 

What  were  the  keys  to  this  secret  of  the 
Lord  ?  Blameless  living,  absolute  sincerity, 
high  purpose,  steeping  themselves  in  the  life 
and  spirit  of  patriarchs,  lawgivers,  psalmists, 
prophets,  apostles ;  above  all,  a  constant  resting 
in  God.  Janet  still  treasured  the  letter  of  John 
Gordon,  banker  and  ironmaster,  saying  that, 
as  he  had  no  son  to  speak  in  the  evangel,  he 
begged  her  that  a  lad  so  rugged  and  joyous 
and  devout  as  hers,  and  who,  in  the  Stirling 
high  school,  was  making  such  an  honorable 
record,  might,  at  his  charges,  attend  the  uni 
versity.  Also,  a  letter  from  Prof.  Archibald 
Geikie,  about  midway  of  the  Edinburgh 
course,  saying  he  was  sure  that  her  son  was 


84  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

predestined  to  read  God's  thoughts  in  the 
rocks  even  more  than  in  ancient  Hebrew  and 
Greek. 

When,  therefore,  Janet  read  the  words  in 
Duncan's  letter :  "  If  a  young  person,  fair 
and  tall,  and  comparable  to  none  I  know  but 
Janet  McLeod,  shall  look  into  our  small  house, 
God  will  have  sent  her,  and  all  will  be  well. 
Grant  her,  I  pray  you,  my  mother,  aught  she 
shall  ask.  But,  if  she  come  not,  God  means 
otherwise," — she  felt  that  another  meaning  of 
the  future  was  about  to  be  disclosed.  And 
between  her  thankfulness  for  Duncan's  and 
Douglas  Campbell's  spared  lives,  for  the  pros 
perity  of  both  of  them,  for  Duncan's  promise 
that  she  should  visit  Colorado  the  next  sum 
mer,  and  her  solicitude  about  the  "young 
person,  fair  and  tall,"  her  entire  day  was  a 
prayer.  She  walked  to  St.  Ninian  in  the  early 
afternoon  and  read  to  Margaret  Campbell  the 
less  confidential  parts  of  Duncan's  letter,  and 
the  two  women  commingled  their  tears  and 
songs  of  thanksgiving.  Janet  could  ill  spare 
the  time  that  day  to  go  to  Margaret,  but  the 
news  was  too  good  to  keep.  She  reminded 
herself,  also,  of  the  Scripture's  disapproval  of 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  85 

holding  back  good  tidings.  She  worked  all 
the  harder  when  she  got  back. 

Throughout  the  day,  and  even  when  pray 
ing,  Janet  would  from  time  to  time  find  her 
self  wondering  whom  Duncan  had  in  mind. 
His  acquaintance  was  large  in  Edinburgh  and 
elsewhere  in  Scotland.  "Would  some  young 
woman,  passing  through  Stirling,  call  upon 
her  out  of  respect  for  her  son  ?  Or  could  it 
be  some  one  she  herself  knew  in  her  native 
town  ?  Among  these  last  she  thought  of  sev 
eral,  but  most  of  Kathleen ;  and  yet,  from 
Duncan's  never  having  seemed  to  think  of 
her,  from  the  very  distinct  set  of  Kathleen's 
life  in  scholarly  and  altruistic  directions,  and 
from  their  wide  difference  in  means  and  so 
cial  position,  Janet  tried  to  dismiss  the  thought 
of  her,  lest  she  be  disappointed. 

Do,  however,  what  she  would,  over  and  over 
again  throughout  the  day  the  face  of  the  child 
Kathleen,  in  her  Bible-class,  before  Kathleen's 
college  days,  would  intrude  itself.  Once  Janet 
found  herself  in  a  reverie,  her  work  fallen  to 
the  floor,  and  the  fire  burnt  low, — she  never 
could  tell  how  long  it  lasted, — recalling  the 
child's  mobile  and  strangely  winning  face,  her 


86  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

unselfish  ways,  her  rare  insight  into  Scripture, 
her  fondness  for  her  humble  teacher,  and  the 
renown  she  had  since  won  at  Girton  College, 
Cambridge,  and  in"  philanthropic  work  in  sev 
eral  British  cities.  She  remembered,  too,  with 
quickened  pulse,  how  Kathleen  had  not  for 
gotten  her,  though  their  lives  had  grown 
apart ;  but  how,  on  the  contrary,  once  a  year, 
at  the  Christmas  season,  if  not  of  tener,  she  had 
called ;  and  how,  on  Janet's  birthday,  which 
the  child  had  been  wont  to  make  much  of, 
there  never  failed  still  to  arrive  some  remem 
brance, — a  book  by  Professor  Bruce,  or  a  vol 
ume  of  Professor  Kobertson  Smith's,  or  some 
thing  of  Henry  Drummond's,  with  such  words 
on  the  fly  leaf  as  only  Kathleen  could  write. 
Now  she  thought  of  it,  too,  was  not  Duncan's 
having  maintained  absolute  silence  about  her 
significant?  "O  God!"  Janet  was  roused 
from  her  reverie  by  hearing  herself  say; — . 
"  O  God !  if  such  a  woman,  so  winsome,  so 
tender,  so  good,  so  able,  might  be  for  Dun 
can  1 " — but  she  did  not  let  herself  finish  the 
prayer,  so  shamefaced  was  she. 

All  this  rushed  back  on  her  afresh  when  she 
heard    Kathleen    dismiss    her    carriage,    and 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  87 

hastened  to  open  for  her  the  door.  Her 
heart  and  her  hope  beat  high.  Had  not 
Duncan  said,  "God  will  have  sent  her,  and 
all  will  be  well "  ?  But  when  she  saw  that 
fine  creature,  dressed  so  perfectly,  sitting 
opposite  her,  and  looked  into  the  open,  frank 
eyes,  and  saw  her  so  self-possessed,  so  tender, 
and  yet  so  strong, — her  heart  sank.  And 
though  Janet  had  held  her  self-possession,  too, 
and  though  they  both  had  been  greatly  moved 
during  the  half  hour, — as  Janet  thought  it  all 
over,  she  despaired.  Standing  thus,  inside 
the  closed  door,  with  the  carriage  wheels 
receding,  she  found  herself  saying :  "  She 
will  be  good  to  Duncan.  She  will  carefully 
ascertain  the  facts,  and  think  them  through. 
That  is  why  she  asked  for  the  letter.  But  her 
heart  will  either  have  gone  to  another,  or  to 
God's  work.  Oh,  ma  puir  laddie,  God  help 
ye!" 

But  that  was  before  her  prayer.  She  has 
wrestled  since.  She  has  read,  moreover : 
"The  Lord  God  of  heaven,  which  took  me 
from  my  father's  house,  and  from  the  land  of 
my  kindred,  ...  he  shall  send  his  angel 
before  thee,  and  thou  shalt  take  a  wife  unto  my 


88  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

son  from  thence."  She  has  read  of  the  sign 
asked  by  Abraham's  servant  to  be  fulfilled. 
She  has  heard  him  exultingly  tell:  "And 
before  I  had  done  speaking  in  mine  heart, 
behold,  Kebekah  came  forth  with  her  pitcher 
on  her  shoulder."  She  has  heard  the  ques 
tion  :  "  Wilt  thou  go  with  this  man  ?  "  and 
Kebekah's  swift,  womanly  reply :  "  I  will 
go."  She  has,  in  short,  found  wings  again. 
So,  with  a  face  bespeaking  at  once  solicitude 
and  triumph,  she  opens  Duncan's  letter, 
spreads  it  out  over  the  love  story  of  so  long 
ago,  and  reads : 

"  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  October  20. 
"  MY  DEAR  Miss  GOKDON  : 

"  This  letter  will  surprise  you. 

"  It  surprises  me,  so  stupid  and  so  blind  have 
I  been. 

"  Moreover,  as  I  see  it  now,  I  have  been  rude 
to  you.  Not  in  anything  done, — God  forbid ! 
— but  in  things  undone.  Such  kindness  as  you 
have  shown  my  mother  should  have  received 
some  acknowledgment  from  me.  Will  you 
please  forgive  me  ? 

"  In  a  letter  to  my  mother,  going  by  the 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  89 

same  mail  as  this,  I  have  told  her  of  seeing, 
when  it  was  necessary  for  him  and  for  me, 
Douglas  Campbell's  Margaret  and  her  bairns 
at  St.  Ninian,  as  if  I  were  there.  I  saw  more, 
which  I  did  not  tell  my  mother. 

"  I  saw  a  small  girl's  face  bending  with  my 
mother's  over  an  open  Bible.  I  saw  the  love 
between  them,  and  how  the  small  girl  helped 
my  mother  perhaps  more  than  my  mother 
helped  her. 

"  Miss  Gordon,  I  loved  that  girl.  I  told  no 
one.  I  did  not  tell  myself.  She  is  not,  I  said, 
for  me.  Hence  the  fury  of  my  work  and  my 
honors  in  the  high  school.  It  was  the  only 
way  I  could  banish  that  girl's  face.  But, 
with  all  my  work,  it  would  come  back  to  me. 
I  saw  it  in  Stirling.  I  saw  it  at  Edinburgh. 
It  followed  me  in  my  walks  on  the  Calton  Hill, 
around  Arthur's  Seat,  on  the  Braid  Hills,  and 
by  the  Forth.  It  looked  out  at  me  from 
Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  from  calculus,  from 
biology,  from  the  rocks  Professor  Geikie 
unsealed  for  us. 

"  Then  I  struck  Drummond.  He  was  a  lone 
man.  We  men  talked  much  of  that.  When 
we  had  put  everything  together  we  concluded 


go  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  he  had  turned  his  face  from  that  life  of 
love  for  which  he  was  better  fitted  than  any 
other  living  man,  to  do  Christ's  work.  Then  I 
had  my  escape,  walking,  as  I  fancied,  in  Drum- 
mond's  steps.  It  turns  out,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
to  have  been  no  escape,  but  I  only  so  dis 
covered  the  other  day  when  I  almost  died  for 
Douglas  Campbell,  and  when  I  saw,  for  his 
sake,  his  Margaret  as  if  present,  and  also  saw 
that  girl. 

"Think  me  not  eerie.  It  never  happened 
but  once.  Then  two  lives  depended  on  it. 
Also,  an  emancipation  from  a  great  blindness 
required  it,  and  God  was  good,  as  when  he 
sent  the  ladder  to  misguided  Jacob. 

"Miss  Gordon,  do  you  think  that,  after  a 
while,  you  could  love  me  ? 

"I  have  written  my  mother,  as  I  said. 
The  letter  is  very  full.  Douglas  Camp 
bell's  affairs  as  well  as  mine  required  it.  In 
it  I  have  neither  mentioned  nor  implicated 
you.  But  the  letter  is  so  written  that,  should 
you  look  in  on  her,  she  will  understand  enough, 
I  think,  to  let  you  see  it.  But,  if  you  do  not 
go,  she  will  never  know,  nor  connect  you  with 
it.  So  please  be  quite  free,  Miss  Gordon,  not 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  91 

to  go.  But,  if  you  see  the  letter,  it  will  tell 
you  things  about  me  that  you  ought  to  know  ; 
if,  that  is  to  say,  you  can  think  seriously  of 
this  matter  at  all. 

"  What  shall  I  say  more  ? 

"In  character,  in  attainments,  in  deeds,  I 
hope  I  could  merit  your  respect.  I  have  been 
fortunate  in  this  mine;  and  I  believe  that 
your  father,  if  he  looked  up  my  affairs, 
would  feel  it  not  imprudent,  as  regards  my 
ability  suitably  to  care  for  you,  to  approve 
my  suit. 

"  But,  Miss  Gordon,  there  is  no  man  living 
that  is  worthy  of  you.  I  think,  too,  of  your 
renown,  of  your  place  among  the  best  forces 
of  our  British  life,  and  I  almost  reproach  my 
self  for  speaking. 

"  Yet  I  cannot  but  speak.  It  is  my  right, 
and  yours, — the  right  of  loving,  and  of  being 
loved.  If  you  can  say  me,  Yes,  no  man  on 
earth  will  be  so  blessed.  I  hope,  too,  that  it 
will  bless  you.  If  you  cannot,  a  horror  of 
great  darkness  will  fall ;  but  it  can  never  shut 
out,  thank  God,  that  girl's  face  bending  over 
my  mother's  Bible.  To  have  only  that  will  be 
better  than  if  I  had  all  other  faces. 


92  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"My   dear  Kathleen, — forgive  my  calling 
you  so  just  once, — I  love  you.    God  bless  you  1 
"  Always  yours, 

"  DUNCAN  MCLEOD." 

"  But  for  the  learning,"  cries  Janet  McLeod, 
"  it's  the  same  letter  his  father  wrote  me  after 
the  Belief  of  Lucknow.  Starvation  opened 
my  Duncan's  een,  and  the  peril  in  the  shaft 
opened  oor  bairn's.  Ay,  and  when  my  Duncan 
was  back  from  the  Mutiny,  and  told  how  the 
hunger  wrought  in  him,  he  added  that  his 
father,  though  but  a  lad  then,  saw,  when  hard 
pressed  amidst  the  battle  of  the  Nile,  the  child 
face  of  her  that,  ten  years  after,  became  his 
wife, — saw,  and  by  the  sight  overcame.  O 
God,  that  the  same  blessed  outcome  may  be 
to  oor  Duncan  and  Kathleen !  " 

Thereupon,  with  streaming  face,  she  seeks 
her  chamber,  after  a  day  so  eventful,  there  to 
wrestle  through  the  night  watches  for  the 
twain. 

Oh,  scoffers  at  prayer !  oh,  respecters  but 
neglecters  of  it !  in  a  world  in  which  men  are 
appointed  to  be  coworkers  with  God,  and  in 
which  the  supreme  forces  are  psychic, — little 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  93 

do  you  know  how  much  you  yourselves  owe  of 
blessing  to  intercessory  prayer,  or  how  much 
of  all  that  is  strongest  and  sweetest  in  life  has 
that  for  its  initial ! 

But  God  alone  knows  the  true  answer, 
when  prayers  conflict  as  they  seemed  to  that 
night. 

For  it  is  ten  o'clock  at  Stirling  House, 
Liverpool.  The  settlement's  day's  work  is 
done.  The  residents  of  the  house  have  been 
along  the  docks  all  day,  bringing  sunshine  and 
hope  into  the  wretched  homes  of  the  dockers, 
and  conducting  the  kindergarten  teaching,  the 
mother's  meeting  work,  the  night  school  in 
struction,  and  the  boys'  and  girls'  club  cam 
paigns.  It  has  been  a  day  of  successes.  The 
successes  have  proved  their  genuineness  by  the 
dissatisfied  feeling  they  have  left  in  the 
workers.  "  What  are  these  among  so  many  ?  " 
and,  "Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things?" 
they  ask  one  another  as  they  assemble  for  the 
devotions  which  end  each  day,  but  which,  this 
night,  are  turned  into  a  vigil  of  prayer  for  a 
special  object. 

The  leader  reads,  out  of  the  Acts,  the  account 
of  Barnabas'  leaving  the  great  work  begun  at 


94  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Antioch  to  seek  Saul.  "  It  was  Miss  Gordon," 
she  says,  as  she  lays  down  the  Bible,  "who 
suggested  this  settlement ;  for  whose  town  it 
is  named;  who  has  brought  each  one  of  us 
into  the  work ;  and  whose  supervision  of  it, 
with  frequent  bits  of  actual  residence,  seems 
indispensable  to  its  continued  success.  And 
now  Melbourne,  where  Henry  Drummond 
made  so  profound  an  impression,  summons 
her  to  begin  a  Social  Settlement  there,  and  to 
organize  the  entire  Australian  work.  The 
matter  before  this  vigil  of  prayer  is,  Can  Stirl 
ing  House  give  her  up  ?  Can  England  spare 
her  ?  Submissive  to  God's  will,  we  believe  it 
right,  nevertheless,  to  lay  on  him  our  burden, 
pleading  that  she  may  remain  to  do  the  work 
that  lieth  next.  Until  that  is  stronger,— as, 
for  the  large  but  still  infant  work  at  Antioch, 
Barnabas  went  to  seek  Saul, — shall  we  not  in 
tercede  that  we  may  retain  Miss  Gordon? 
The  time  is  now  yours." 

Some  one  thereupon  gently  starts, — 

"  Work,  for  the  night  is  coming  "  ; 

and  some  one  else, — 

u  Rescue  the  perishing  "  ; 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  95 

and  yet  another, — 

"Saviour,  I  follow  on,  guided  by  thee "  ; 
and  then  the  depths  are  broken  up,  and 
prayer  after  prayer,  almost  agonizing  in 
quality,  ascends.  Young  women  from  Chester 
and  Lincoln,  from  Salisbury  and  Carlisle,  from 
York  and  Birmingham  and  London,  follow 
one  another.  One  tells  her  heavenly  Father 
of  a  life  of  luxury,  another  of  a  life  of  doubt, 
another  of  a  life  nearing  a  great  sin,  left,  each, 
for  this  saving  work  in  the  vast  seaport. 
They  thank  God  that  ever  he  led  their  steps 
to  Girton  College ;  that  Miss  Gordon  was 
there ;  that  she  gave  learning  a  new  meaning 
for  them ;  that  she  lifted  it  higher  than  they 
had  ever  esteemed  it,  and  yet  subordinated  it 
to  character,  to  spiritual  living,  and  to  daily 
service. 

"  O  God,"  pleads  she  that  has  spoken  of  a 
life  nearing  a  great  sin — "  O  God,  ships 
dropped  down  the  Mersey  this  day  for  India, 
for  China,  for  Japan,  for  Africa,  for  South 
America,  for  Canada,  for  the  United  States, 
for  the  Mediterranean,  for  Spain,  for  France, 
for  the  Baltic.  "We  go  to  all.  All  come  to  us. 
Is  there,  O  God,  any  work  beneath  the  South- 


96  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ern  Cross  so  pivotal  and  needy  as  Liverpool's  ? 
And,  0  blessed  Lord,  do  not  we,  too,  need  Miss 
Gordon?  Consider  Girton.  Consider  us 
girls.  Let  not  our  feet  slip.  But  who,  after 
Jesus,  can  so  hold  us  as  she  ?  " — and  the  prayer 
is  dissolved  in  a  sobbing  as  if  heart  would 
break. 

There,  then,  we  leave  them,  past  midnight, 
pleading ;  and,  returning  to  the  small  house  in 
Stirling,  just  as  there  is  the  faintest  flush  in 
the  eastern  sky,  we  find  Janet  McLeod  still 
wrestling  that  Kathleen  may  go  to  Colorado, 
as  Stirling  House  is  wrestling  that  she  may 
stay  in  Great  Britain.  Janet  is  very  weary, 
and  seems,  in  her  weariness,  to  hear  aYoice, 
saying,  "  Let  me  go,  for  the  day  breaketh " ; 
to  which,  with  all  the  might  of  her  nature, 
she  makes  reply,  "I  will  not  let  thee  go, 
except  thou  bless  me."  And  now,  prescient 
of  victory,  she  adds :  "  O  my  God,  who 
grantedst  the  face  to  Nelson's  hard  pressed 
gunner;  who  grantedst  the  face  to  the  man 
starving  at  Lucknow  ;  and  who,  now,  hast  yet 
again  granted  the  face  for  the  rescue  o' 
Douglas  an'  Duncan, — mercifully  do  for  oor 
ain  laddie  as  thou  didst  for  them  that  feared 


The  Making  of  a  Scot  97 

thy  name  afore  him,  and  whose  bluid  is  his ! 
O  oor  Saviour,  be  that  gude  to  gie  Duncan 
Kathleen ! " 

An  hour  later  the  rising  sun,  thrusting  its 
bar  of  gold  between    curtain    and  window- 
casing,  lays  it  across  a  sleeping  face,  as  it  had 
been  the  face  of  an  angel. 
7 


VI 

A   CALEDONIAN   CAPTAIN   OF  FINANCE 

UR  last  two  chapters 
have  concerned  them 
selves  with  a  day  and  a 
night  far  down  beneath 
the  Castle  Rock  at  Stir 
ling.  Its  glad  surprises,  its  solicitudes,  its 
wrestlings  and  agonizings,  have  passed  before 
us.  What  of  that  day  and  that  night  on  the 
Heights  ?  Did  stately  mansion  differ  greatly 
from  lowly  cottage  ? 

Just  at  the  stroke  of  seven,  on  the  morning 
of  that  day,  John  Gordon  sits  down  to  break 
fast.  His  saintly  Annie,  a  chronic  invalid,  is 
generally  able  to  lunch  with  him,  and  some 
times  even  to  dine  with  him ;  but  he  is  alone 
at  this  meal,  except  when  Kathleen  is  at  home. 
Then,  as  on  this  morning,  she  punctiliously 
takes  her  place  opposite  him,  but  not  without 
a  fervent  greeting  from  her  father  first. 

The  quiet  elegance  of  the  room,  and,  in  fact, 
98 


A  Caledonian  Captain  of  Finance      99 

of  the  entire  house,  is  impressive.  There  is  no 
ostentation;  nothing  is  overdone.  Even  in 
such  a  man's  home  there  are  evidences  of 
prudence  and  economy.  A  very  wealthy 
person  is  not  necessarily  a  spendthrift.  Yet 
there  is  a  richness  about  everything  and  a 
faultless  taste  that  captivate  the  imagination. 
Kathleen  from  tender  girlhood  has  aided  in 
effecting  these  results,  but  they  were  already 
well  in  progress  at  her  earliest  remembrance. 

How  is  it,  let  us  pause  to  ask,  that  John 
and  Annie  Gordon,  born  in  the  far  north, 
toilers  always,  who  have  come  up  from 
poverty,  have  such  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of 
things,  even  to  forms,  fabrics,  colors,  furnish 
ings  ?  How  is  it,  particularly,  that  not  one  of 
the  many  choice  canvases  and  marbles  which 
surprise  you  all  over  the  house,  is  out  of 
taste,  or,  a  rarer  thing,  inharmonious?  The 
answer  is,  Janet  McLeod's  "secret  of  the 
Lord."  It  is  the  inner  eye,  to  be  had  in 
larger  or  smaller  degree  by  everybody  that 
will  walk  in  the  Light.  Their  simplicity,  their 
trueness,  their  quick  and  keen  powers,  not 
only  of  observation  but  of  appreciation  and 
joy  in  things,  and,  above  all,  the  beautiful 


1OO  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

souls  which  they  had  even  in  cottage  and 
fisher's  hut,  are  in  evidence  all  over  this  House 
Beautiful,  from  the  windows  of  which  one 
looks  out  on  the  ancient  and  massive  Grey- 
friars'  Church,  on  the  castle,  and  on  the  moun 
tains  that,  like  sentinels,  guard  Stirling  round 
about. 

"It  is  a  bright,  chatty  breakfast,  with  some 
bits  of  fun,  some  gentle  raillery,  and  some 
really  extraordinary  repartee.  John  Gordon's 
eyes  are  ever  drinking  Kathleen  in,  and  set 
ting  her  as  in  an  aureole. 

Then  the  great  Bible,  in  its  rich  binding,  is 
spread  open,  the  servants  come  in,  and  Kath 
leen,  as  is  her  custom  when  at  home,  reads. 
Their  reading  is  in  course.  They  are  in  the 
Song  of  Songs.  Her  mellow  voice  seems  to  in 
terpret  the  mystic  words,  and  with  passionate 
earnestness  she  concludes : 

"  My  beloved  is  white  and  ruddy, 
The  chiefest  among  ten  thousand  ;    .     .     . 
Yea,  he  is  altogether  lovely." 

"  Oh,  what  a  Saviour ! "  John  Gordon 
devoutly  exclaims. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  answers  Kathleen ;  "  though 
that  is  not  the  primary  meaning ;  "  and,  in  the 


A  Caledonian  Captain  of  Finance    101 

most  artless  manner  possible,  she  tells  of  the 
piece  of  dramatic  poetry,  designed  to  be  set  to 
music,  which  the  Song  of  Songs  is,  in  celebra 
tion  of  a  deep,  pure  and  holy  love,  and  of 
loyalty  to  it  amidst  great  contrary  allure 
ments.  By  way  of  making  her  point  clearer, 
she  opens  and  passes  around  for  inspection, 
Griffis'  "Lily  among  Thorns,"  with  the  text 
printed  as  a  drama.  "That  is  it,  father," 
she  adds ;  "  the  Shulamite,  whose  beauty  and 
character  have  attracted  Solomon  and  his 
court,  is  praising  her  own  true  lover,  a  plain 
man  of  the  mountains,  and  will  on  no  account 
break  their  betrothal." 

John  Gordon  shakes  his  head. 

"But,  father,"  Kathleen  urges,  "is  there 
anything  greater,  after  one's  relation  to  God 
himself,  than  that  one  should  thus  love  and  be 
loved,  and  prove  true  to  love  at  whatever 
cost  ?  Take  you  and  mother.  I  do  not  know 
a  more  beautiful  thing  than  the  way  you  are 
bound  up  in  each  other.  It  is  one  of  the  chief 
inspirations  of  my  life.  Out  of  that  grows,  in 
deed,  the  derived  and  even  higher  thought  of 
the  supreme  Lover,  Jesus,  and  his  Bride,  the 
Church." 


102          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Perhaps  you  are  right,  Kathleen,"  replies 
John  Gordon,  whose  heart  is  touched. 

Then  all  kneel,  and  this  priest  in  his  own 
house  prays.  Such  a  prayer !  Not  one  in  the 
home  circle  is  left  out.  Then  his  intercessions 
broaden.  He  pleads  for  Stirling,  for  Scotland, 
for  the  United  Kingdom,  for  the  Empire,  for 
Our  Sovereign  Lady,  for  "the  whole  world, 
which  is  thy  footstool,  for  all  the  children  of 
men."  This  last,  my  friend, — and  there  was  a 
grip  about  it, — included  and  affected  you  and 
me. 

All  rise  from  their  knees,  the  servants  with 
draw,  there  is  a  good-bye  kiss,  the  carriage 
door  closes,  James  touches  the  reins,  Kathleen 
stands  on  the  porch  waving  yet  further 
adieus,  and  John  Gordon,  looking  back,  mur 
murs  :  "  Except  for  her  financial  heresy,  from 
which  I  am  hoping  her  good  sense  will  con 
vert  her,  the  child  grows  more  and  more  won 
derful  to  me  day  by  day." 

Kathleen's  economic  views  were  a  sore  trial 
to  her  father.  He  considered  them  not  only 
ill-grounded,  but  dangerous.  He  prayed  about 
them  much.  At  times  he  argued  and  pleaded 
with  her  to  forsake  them.  And  she,  though 


A  Caledonian  Captain  of  Finance    103 

she  never  yielded  an  inch,  was  so  thoughtful 
and  tactful  that  he  fondly  dreamed  that  the 
day  was  not  remote  when  she  would  be  con 
verted  from  them,  and  when  his  cup  of  joy  in 
her,  now  level  with  the  brim,  would  overflow. 

Had  Kathleen  been  thus  converted,  two  peo 
ple  and  a  mine  in  Colorado  would  have  had  a 
very  different  history.  It  is  not  unimportant 
what  a  young  woman  thinks,  especially  if  she 
thinks  about  things  that  undergird  life.  On 
the  contrary,  what  she  thus  thinks,  as  in  this 
plain  narrative,  will  largely  determine  the 
days  that  are  to  be.  Oh,  that,  by  the  shore, 
on  the  ocean,  and  in  the  mountains,  in  fash 
ionable  drawing-rooms,  and  among  the  Four 
Hundred,  God  might  touch  her  heart,  as  he 
touched  Kathleen's,  and  as  fruitfully  ! 

But  let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  at  John 
Gordon.  As  we  have  seen,  he  was  up  betimes. 
The  impulses  of  his  poverty  and  struggle  re 
mained  with  him.  He  liked  the  early  start. 
He  liked  a  quiet  time  in  his  private  office  be 
fore  business  began. 

The  reader  will  perhaps  be  interested  to 
know  how  this  captain  of  industry  and  of 
finance  spent  this  quiet  time.  The  morning 


104  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  Kathleen  read  from  the  Song  of  Songs 
may  serve  as  an  illustration. 

He  turned  the  key  on  the  inside  of  the  door. 
He  raised  the  shade  of  that  one  of  the  win 
dows  of  his  office — broad,  with  a  deep  win 
dow-seat — which  looked  toward  the  north. 
He  raised  it  to  the  top  of  the  casing.  He  re 
membered  Daniel,  with  his  windows  open  to 
ward  Jerusalem.  The  shade  at  the  top  was 
his  approximation.  But  was  Jerusalem  to  the 
north  of  Stirling  ?  ISTo  ;  not  Jerusalem  of  old, 
but  John  Gordon's  Jerusalem,  to  wit,  the  Scot 
tish  Highlands.  There  stood  the  fisher's  hut 
where  he  was  born.  There  was  the  cottage 
where  his  Annie  grew  up.  There,  by  the 
kirk,  slept  his  mother  and  his  father.  Within 
that  kirk  he  had  been  married.  In  it  he  had 
found  eternal  life.  The  impulse  and  sustain 
ing  power  of  that  life,  and  nothing  less,  had 
made  him  one  — 

11  Who  breaks  his  birth's  invidious  bar, 
And  grasps  the  skirts  of  happy  chance, 
And  breasts  the  blows  of  circumstance, 
And  grapples  with  his  evil  star. ' ' 

When  John  Gordon  prayed  in  the  session, 
or  at  family  worship, — though  there  were  ex- 


A  Caledonian  Captain  of  Finance    105 

ceptions  at  the  latter, — he  scrupulously  re 
garded  certain  rubrics  of  prayer, — adoration, 
thanksgiving,  confession,  petition,  intercession, 
and  the  rest.  But,  kneeling  at  precisely  three 
minutes  past  eight, — he  arrived  at  eight  and 
there  were  people  who  set  their  watches  by  his 
arrival ; — kneeling  at  precisely  three  minutes 
past  eight,  before  that  uncurtained  window 
which  looked  toward  the  Highlands,  he  at 
tended,  as  with  everything  else  done  in  that 
office,  strictly  to  business.  Without  prelimi 
naries,  he  asked  for  just  what  he  wanted,  and 
only  what  he  wanted,  and  in  the  fewest  possi 
ble  words.  He  asked,  too,  with  great  fervor ; 
argued  and  pressed  the  case;  and,  all  alone 
there,  grappled  psychic  forces  in  a  more  posi 
tive  and  dynamic  way,  even,  than  in  any  of 
the  celebrated  combats  of  logic,  wit  and  will 
which  he  carried  on  with  the  manufacturers 
and  the  financiers  who  were  closeted  with  him 
in  that  same  room  from  day  to  day. 

The  foundry,  the  furnaces,  the  shops,  are  all 
gone  over ;  the  contracts  for  steel  ribs,  girders 
and  plates  for  ships  building  along  the  Clyde 
and  at  Belfast;  his  banking-house  at  Glasgow; 
its  branches  at  Inverness,  Aberdeen,  Edin- 


106          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

burgh,  Dundee  and  Stirling.  Shall  he  bear 
longer  with  that  superintendent,  or  displace 
him  ?  If  the  latter,  with  whom  ?  "  Sandie," 
he  cries,  "  honest,  faithful  Sandie,  too  easy 
with  the  men — will  discharge  none  of  them 
— shall  he  not  go  ?  By  whom  shall  he  be  suc 
ceeded  ?  "  And,  after  a  moment,  apparently 
getting  no  encouragement  from  the  Oracle  to 
displace  that  merciful  man,  he  adds,  "  God 
bless  Sandie  1"  Shall  he  sign  a  certain  con 
tract,  insist  on  its  modification,  or  decline  it  ? 
There  is  a  pause  here ;  intense  thought ;  then 
he  says,  "Kemember  Hiram's  and  Solomon's 
contract,  and  show  me  the  modification  that 
will  make  it  right  for  both."  Shall  his  house 
negotiate  that  issue  of  bonds?  Shall  it  buy 
such  a  block  of  stock  ?  Then  he  grows  per 
sonal  :  "  Sustain  Mr.  MacDonald," — Mr.  Mac- 
Donald  is  head  of  the  banking,  his  most  valued 
and  loved  helper,  but  nearing  a  breakdown, 
for  few  can  keep  John  Gordon's  pace.  "  Bless 
Mr.  Blackie,"— Mr.  Blackie  is  head  of  the  iron 
and  steel, — "give  him  more  backbone."  From 
these  he  passes  to  other  of  his  more  important 
helpers,  a  score  of  them  at  least.  "And 
Annie,"  he  adds,  with  voice  a  bit  shaky,  "  bet- 


A  Caledonian  Captain  of  Finance    107 

ter,  to  me,  sick,  thou  knowest,  than  all  other 
women  well,  thy  best  gift ;  and  her  ain  lassie, 
oor  Kathleen;  gie  her  soonder  views  o'  mat 
ters  pecuniary,  I  humbly  beseech  thee,  aboot 
pittin'  the  money  into  the  bank,  as  the  Maister 
said ;  an'  didna  even  he — an'  weel  toward  his 
last  'oors  too — sit  ower  again'  the  treasury? 
Amen." 

There  is  no  bridge,  be  it  observed,  to  get  to 
the  "Amen." 

Then  he  rises  from  his  knees,  draws  the 
shade  half  down  the  window,  reads  a  chapter 
from  the  Proverbs, — to  the  sagacity  of  the 
Proverbs  he  attributes  in  no  small  degree 
his  business  success, — turns  the  key  of  his 
office-door,  opens  his  desk,  and  tackles  his 
correspondence. 

He  is  secretive  about  his  business  affairs. 
Sometimes  he  refers,  with  a  devoutness  that 
people  take  for  mysteriousness,  to  the  Silent 
Partner  he  must  consult.  Thus  it  comes  about 
that  many  persons — all  unwittingly  to  him — 
suppose  that  some  great  but  anonymous  finan 
cier  is  his  associate.  They  all  mistake.  His 
Silent  Partner  is  God.  Not  the  Duke  of 
Westminster,  nor  the  Eothschilds,  nor  his  per- 


108          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

sonal  friend,  Andrew   Carnegie,  could  serve 
him  so  well. 

Nevertheless, — for  so  does  God  bear  with 
men ! — when  his  eyes  shall  be  opened,  he  will 
shed  bitter  tears  of  repentance  over  sundry 
items  on  his  side  of  the  copartnership ;  items 
rightly  enough  intended,  but  the  devil's  own, 
fresh  out  of  hell.  Ah,  the  misery  of  it  is  that 
not  the  devil's  men  only,  but  Christ's  men 
often,  with  their  blinded  eyes,  are  goading  the 
world  on  toward  economic  perdition ! 


YII 


KATHLEEN   GORDON'S   CORONATION   DAY 

fHEN  her  father's  carriage 
has  disappeared  from 
sight,  on  the  morning  of 
the  Song  of  Songs,  and 
the  morning  of  Janet  Mc- 
Leod's  memorable  day, 
Kathleen  Gordon  tends 
some  plants;  serves  her 
mother's  breakfast  in  the 
same  radiant  way  she 
has  had  with  her  father ; 
tells,  among  other  things, 
of  the  discussion  about  the  Song  of  Songs, — 
to  which  Annie  Gordon  rejoins,  "  I  have  long 
so  believed "  (of  course  you  have,  dear  saint 
of  God !) ;  and  has  just  closed  the  door  of  her 
own  room  for  her  Quiet  Hour, — for  she  is  a 
"  Comrade  of  the  Morning  "Watch," — when  a 
maid  brings  up  her  mail.  Among  several  let 
ters  is  one  postmarked  Melbourne  and  another 
109 


no          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

from  America  bearing  the  mark,  Colorado. 
One  might  have  noted  just  the  slightest  start 
as  she  observes  the  latter,  but  only  for  a  mo 
ment.  The  entire  mail,  unopened,  is  laid  on 
her  desk,  and  she  goes  on  with  Scripture, 
meditation  and  prayer  as  she  had  intended; 
for  Kathleen  is  not  a  person  to  turn  back. 
For  Scripture  she  reads  entirely  and  aloud 
that  book  of  the  Old  Testament  which  the 
family  worship  has  drawn  her  mind  toward, 
together  with  very  considerable  extracts  from 
"The  Lily  among  Thorns,"  concluding  with 
the  words : 


"This  name  of  God,  [' Jah- Jehovah ';  that  is,  'Very 
Flame  of  Jehovah,']  used  only  in  poetry,  is  here  set  at  the 
culmination  of  the  Poem  of  Poems  most  felicitously  and  ap 
propriately.  This  is  the  divine  side  of  Love  ;  it  has  also  a 
human  side.  The  image  and  superscription  are  of  Jehovah, 
the  worth  of  stamp  and  legend  must  be  tested  by  human 
experience.  As  she  remembers  the  deep  waters  of  trial  and 
the  bribes  of  a  king  she  adds  : 

"  'Many  waters  cannot  quench  love, 
Neither  can  the  floods  drown  it : 
If  a  man  were  to  give  all  the  substance  of 

his  house  in  place  of  love, 
It  would  utterly  be  contemned.'  " 

Kathleen  falls  into  deep  thought.    Then  she 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    1 1 1 

prays,  long  and  fervently.  "This  is  a  truth 
for  men  and  women,"  she  pleads ;  "  mercifully 
order  it  aright  for  all,  but  especially  for  our 
residents  of  Stirling  House."  She  is  dwelling 
in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High  now ; 
has  forgotten  all  about  the  foreign  letters  on 
her  desk;  is  laying  the  truth  of  her  reading 
most  confidingly  and  suitably  on  God  for  the 
young  women  who  are  dearest  to  her ;  forgets, 
in  her  beautiful  self-effacement,  to  lay  it  on 
God  for  herself  also.  But  God  is  caring  for 
her,  as  she  asks  that  he  will  care  for  them. 

She  rises  from  prayer.  She  sits  down  at 
her  desk.  She  lays  Melbourne  and  Colorado 
aside.  She  reads  the  other  letters,  and  files 
them,  making  certain  memoranda  for  refer 
ence  when  her  stenographer  shall  come.  She 
opens  Melbourne;  reads  with  amazement  its 
contents,  already  known  to  us ;  carries  the 
letter  to  her  mother,  who,  looking  up  with 
shining  face,  says :  "  Beautiful,  Kathleen,  to 
be  so  wanted,  is  it  not,  darling  ?  But  you 
will  hardly  leave  us  ?  " 

Kathleen  writes,  seals  and  sends  to  the 
post-office  by  James,  this  telegram,  addressed, 
"  Stirling  House,  Liverpool  " : 


112  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Urgent  proposal  from  Melbourne  to  start  Social  Settle 
ment  there,  and  to  organize  Australia  for  such  work. 
Residents,  all,  pray  I  may  know  the  right  answer.  Mean 
time,  no  publicity." 


At  this  point  Kathleen's  stenographer  ar 
rives.  "A  matter  of  such  moment  for  our 
work  has  come  up,"  says  Kathleen,  "in  this 
morning's  mail,  for  consideration  and  settle 
ment,  that  I  must  ask  you  to  let  me  excuse 
you  to-day.  Please  come  to-morrow  night." 

Then  Kathleen,  to  whom  a  day  that  opened 
so  peacefully  is  fast  becoming  a  day  of 
destiny,  turns  the  key  in  her  door,  and,  with 
trembling  fingers  and  a  strange,  suffocating 
feeling,  opens  her  Colorado  letter.  Instantly 
it  flashes  upon  her  why  her  God  has  led  her, 
that  very  morning,  to  study  the  Song  of  Songs, 
and  she  draws  a  long  breath,  and  straightens 
herself  up  to  still  the  tumult  of  her  heart. 
Then  she  reads.  The  color  mounts  her  face. 
She  holds  the  letter  unsteadily.  Her  eyes 
fill.  The  letter  becomes  a  blur.  She  dashes 
away  her  tears.  She  reads  to  the  end.  Then, 
the  letter  thrust  within  her  dress,  she  throws 
herself  upon  a  couch,  and  buries  her  face  in  a 
pillow.  There  she  lies,  perfectly  still,  for  a 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    113 

long  time.  When  she  uncovers  her  face,  it  is 
far  more  beautiful  than  it  has  ever  been  be 
fore.  In  her  simplicity  she  looks  into  a 
mirror,  but  turns  from  it  startled,  as  if  it  were 
deceiving  her.  Then  she  opens  a  secret 
drawer  of  her  desk,  which  is  of  old  mahogany 
and  very  quaint,  and  takes  from  it  a  small, 
cheap  photograph  of  a  boy  not  too  well 
dressed, — Janet  McLeod's  Christmas  remem 
brance  for  her,  one  year,  while  the  boy  and 
Kathleen  were  still  children, — and  gazes  on  it 
until,  as  with  the  letter,  she  cannot  see  it. 
Then  she  falls  on  her  knees. 

"  O  Father  in  heaven ! "  she  begins,  but 
cannot  go  on  for  a  glad  sobbing.  "O  Fa 
ther  in  heaven  ! "  she  resumes,  when  she  has 
steadied  herself,  "  I  thank  thee  that  ever  thou 
wast  so  good.  How  couldst  thou  have  been  ! 
But,  O  God,  clear  my  vision.  Show  me  the 
issues  involved.  As  Jesus  pleased  not  himself, 
make  me  brave  not  to  please  myself,  if  I 
ought  not  to.  Whatever  comes,  O  God,  bless 
Duncan,  and  comfort  his  heart  forever ! " 

She  rises.  She  goes  to  the  mirror  again. 
This  time  she  is  not  afraid,  for  it  dawns  on 
her  what  has  happened.  She  looks  at  the 
8 


114          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

reflection  intently.  "Dear  Lord,"  she  softly 
whispers,  "  does  it  change  a  face  like  that  ?  " 
She  gazes  as  if  upon  another  woman,  until 
her  eyes  are  full  again,  and  her  breath  comes 
quickly.  Then  she  sings,  with  voice  very  low, 
lest  she  be  overheard  : 

"  Only  one  May  a  year, 

One  mystery 

Of  bloom,  by  mount  and  mere, 
Coming  to  be. 

"  Only  one  youth  a  life, 

One  passionate  spring, 
Tender,  and  warm,  and  rife 
With  blossoming. 

"  Only  one  dawn  of  love, 

Apocalypse, 
Lifting  the  soul  above 
Its  self -eclipse. 

*'  And  May  and  youth  may  fly : 

If  love  remain, 
Joy  will  be  always  by, 
And  frost  be  gain." 

She  dries  her  face.  A  wonderful  smile 
steals  over  it.  She  lifts  herself  to  her  utmost 
height.  She  poises  her  head  like  a  queen. 
"  O  God ! "  she  slowly  says,  "  and  Kathleen 
thought  she  was  living  before  !  She  was,  but 
it  was  in  the  starlight.  Now  the  sun  is  up. 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    115 

I  can  never  thank  thee  enough.  O  my  dear 
Lord,  bless  Duncan  McLeod ! " 

Would  that  we  might  leave  her  thus,  deep 
calling  unto  deep,  and  the  wonderful  leadings 
of  God  confirming  all ;  but  we  must  tell  the 
truth. 

There  be  those  who  trifle  with  love.  There 
be  those  who  sin  with  it.  There  be  others, 
great  multitudes,  and  true-hearted,  who  miss 
love,  and  who  go  all  their  lives  hungry  for  lack 
of  it,  because,  though  it  is  an  exceedingly  sim 
ple  matter,  they  know  not  how  to  be  such  as  to 
win  love,  nor  how  to  treat  it  when  it  arrives. 
The  Bible  might  tell  them,  but  they  heed  it  not; 
or  they  are  so  much  more  occupied  with  ques 
tions  of  criticism  than  with  it,  that  they  do 
not  learn  its  secret.  The  higher  criticism  is 
good,  yes,  indispensable;  so  is  an  arc-light. 
The  sun  is  better ;  so'  is  the  Bible  itself.  The 
letter  killeth ;  the  spirit  giveth  life. 

Furthermore,  we  wrestle  not  with  flesh  and 
blood,  but  with  principalities  and  powers,  with 
the  highest  things  in  ourselves,  in  our  civiliza 
tion  and  in  our  Christianity.  There  are,  that 
is  to  say,  not  only  vices, — we  know  them,  and 
we  read  the  riot  act  on  them, — but  there  are 


1 16          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  excesses  of  our  virtues,  the  excesses  and 
the  idiosyncrasies.  To  hold  an  even  mind,  to 
maintain  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ,  though 
it  were  easy  if  we  were^  focused  rightly,  is 
harder  than  to  effect  ten  reforms.  But  all 
reforms  would  swiftly  come,  were  that  sim 
plicity  widely  diffused  and  vitally. 

While  Kathleen  is  standing  thus  like  a 
queen, — for  it  is,  if  only  she  knew  it,  her  Cor 
onation  Day, — she  suddenly  summons  the 
Lord  Chief  Marshal.  That  is  what  she  really 
does,  but  what  she  says  is :  "  It  will  not  do  to 
be  carried  off  my  feet  in  this  way.  Where  is 
my  self-mastery  ?  " 

"Self-mastery,"  was  a  great  phrase  with 
Kathleen.  To  do  her  justice,  it  was  generally 
almost  or  quite  the  equivalent  of  Christ-mas 
tery,  and  a  glory  with  her. 

She  straightway  removes  the  letter  from 
her  dress,  as  if  she  had  sinned  a  sin  ever  to 
have  placed  it  there,  and  lays  it  on  her  desk. 
She  thrusts  a  handkerchief  where  it  had  been, 
'and  then  quickly  removes  it.  She  bathes  her 
face,  and  extinguishes  the  light  out  of  it  all 
she  can.  She  puts  on  her  golf  suit — which  is  a 
very  bewitching  thing.  She  seizes  the  letter. 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    117 

She  takes  it  to  her  mother's  room,  and  in  the 
most  commonplace  manner  hands  it  to  her. 
Annie  Gordon  can  read  only  the  first  lines 
for  glad  tears.  Kathleen,  who  cannot  bear  to 
prolong  the  interview,  gently  takes  it  from 
her  mother's  hand,  but  grimly  reads  it  aloud, 
every  word,  as  if  it  were  a  social  settlement 
report. 

"  Kathleen,  there  is  not  a  nobler  man  liv 
ing!"  says  Annie  Gordon,  with  a  strange 
strength  and  enthusiasm;  and  adds,  with 
something  very  like  admonition  in  her  voice, 
"  Does  not  the  letter  move  you  ?  " 

"Should  one  be  too  much  moved,  mother 
dear?" 

"  I  should  be  proud  of  such  a  son,  Kathleen, 
and  I  am  sure  your  father  would  be." 

"  But  not  if  I  did  not  so  choose,  mother  ?  " 

"May  we  not  choose  too  much,  darling? 
Are  there  not  leadings  in  our  lives, — Provi 
dence,  the  heart's  voice,  the  Spirit's  sug 
gestion  ?  " 

Kathleen's  face  is  instantly  suffused  with 
color,  and  the  light  she  has  tried  to  extinguish, 
shines ;  but  she  has  so  placed  herself  that  these 
are  unobserved. 


ll8          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Providence,  mother  ?  What  about  Mel 
bourne  ?  "  she  rejoins. 

"Do  duties  conflict,  Kathleen?"  Annie 
Gordon  answers ;  but  she  is  wiser  than  to 
press  the  matter,  and  only  adds :  "  It  is,  dar 
ling,  your  question.  May  God  make  your 
way  clear !  " 

"  That  is  a  dear,  and  like  my  mother,"  says 
Kathleen ;  and,  so  swiftly  that  her  look  can 
not  be  observed,  kisses  the  pale,  sweet  face, 
and  is  gone. 

From  the  landing  she  returns  conscience- 
smitten  to  her  room ;  fervently  kisses  the  lit 
tle,  cheap  photograph  by  way  of  atonement ; 
is  tempted  to  get  from  her  mother  Duncan's 
letter, — left  for  her  father's  perusal, — and,  in 
still  further  expiation,  to  take  it  with  her; 
hears  the  gruff  tones  of  the  Lord  Chief  Mar 
shal  ;  hurries  down-stairs,  instead ;  and  walks 
swiftly  toward  the  golf  links.  As  she  goes 
along  she  extinguishes  the  light  in  her  face  all 
she  can.  When  she  has  reached  Euth  Camer 
on's,  she  seems  only  radiant  from  her  walk. 
Euth  is  a  Girton  classmate.  They  are  rivals  at 
golf.  Euth  is  glad  to  go  with  her.  The  game 
is  soon  on.  It  is  close  from  start  to  finish. 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    119 

Near  the  end  Kuth  has  the  advantage.  On  a 
sudden  Duncan's  letter  takes  hold  on  Kath 
leen.  She  excels  herself.  She  wins. 

"What  happened  to  you?"  asks  Kuth. 
"  You  were  more  than  yourself." 

"Don't  we  have  to  be  more  than  our 
selves  if  we  are  to  do  our  work?"  replies 
Kathleen. 

On  the  way  back  there  fall  upon  them  a 
dozen  girls  of  ten  or  twelve  years,  just  out  of 
school.  They  idolize  Kathleen  and  are  fond  of 
Kuth,  and  our  alumnce  have  a  great  romp  with 
them. 

At  luncheon  John  Gordon  shines.  He  is  all 
gaiety.  Annie  Gordon  does  her  quiet  part. 
The  good  stories  are  tossed  back  and  forth. 
The  repartee  is  brilliant.  Not  a  word  about 
Melbourne  or  Colorado.  But,  when  James 
announces  the  carriage  for  his  master's  return 
to  the  office,  and  John  Gordon  kisses  his  wife 
and  Kathleen  good-bye,  there  is  a  tear,  not  her 
own,  on  Kathleen's  cheek. 

The  golf  and  the  romp  with  the  children 
have  been  to  recover  her  poise.  Kathleen  does 
even  a  better  thing,  for  which  she  has  planned 
that  golf  and  romp  shall  have  prepared  her ; 


12O          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

she  sleeps  like  a  child  all  the  afternoon.  She 
dresses  for  dinner.  She  is  as  much  herself 
there  as  she  was  at  breakfast.  It  is  a  cheer 
ful  meal.  Kathleen  gets  her  father  to  tell 
stories  of  the  north  and  of  his  life  as  a  fisher 
boy.  She  begs  for  dialect,  and  he  gives  it 
to  her,  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  wits  of 
the  little  haven,  until  all  laugh  till  the  tears 
come.  She  likes  best  stories  about  the  girl 
hood  of  her  mother,  Annie  Murray  that  was, 
and  of  the  old  love-making  time,  but  both  in 
stinctively  avoid  those  to-night. 

Before  they  rise  from  the  table,  John  Gor 
don,  in  the  simplest,  most  natural  way,  says, 
"  Let  us  look  up."  This  means  that  he  and  the 
women  reverently  bow  their  heads.  "Our 
Father,"  says  John  Gordon, — and  there  are  no 
rubrics  of  prayer  now, — "Our  Father,  we 
thank  thee  for  bringing  the  wee  Kathie  to  us ; 
and  for  all  the  comfort  she  has  been  to  us  these 
years;  that  she  never  gave  us  a  moment's 
anxiety,  but  only  ground  for  daily  thanksgiv 
ings  on  her  behalf.  Our  Father,  we  thank 
thee  for  the  great  door  and  effectual,  this  day 
opened  unto  her.  "We  thank  thee  for  the  glo 
rious  apocalypse  that  has  broken  upon  her  life. 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    12 1 

Steady  her.  Give  her  a  clear  lead.  She  will 
be  ours  always,  and  we  hers  always,  and  all 
of  us  thine  always,  in  oor  Father's  house, 
here,  or  far  awa',  or  in  the  mansions  oor  Sav 
iour  is  preparin'  for  us  each.  Amen." 

James  here  announces  the  carriage  for  Kath 
leen,  who  has  arranged  with  her  mother  to 
make  the  call  on  Mrs.  McLeod,  of  which  a 
glimpse  has  already  been  afforded  us,  but  her 
father  will  not  let  her  go  until  he  has  escorted 
the  two  women  to  the  drawing-room,  where  An 
nie  Gordon,  at  the  piano,  plays  a  favorite  Scotch 
air,  and  John  Gordon  and  Kathleen,  all  up  and 
down  the  spacious  apartment,  dance  to  it  right 
merrily.  Such  is  his  life,  that  neither  Annie 
nor  Kathleen  notes  any  incongruity  between 
this  act  and  the  prayer.  Then  John  Gordon 
puts  his  daughter  into  the  carriage,  she  is 
driven  to  Janet  McLeod's,  and  the  two  have 
that  memorable  half  hour  together  which  has 
already  been  described. 

Is  it  surprising  that  Kathleen,  who,  for  the 
time,  has  banished  the  Lord  Chief  Marshal, 
and  who  does  not  even  try  to  extinguish  the 
light  in  her  face,  reminds  one  of  the  Murillo  ? 
But  is  it  not  surprising  that  when  Kathleen  is 


122  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

thinking  she  will  say,  Yes,  to  Duncan,  Janet 
should  be  thinking  the  precise  opposite  ? 

The  Lord  Chief  Marshal  grumbles,  however, 
as  her  returning  carriage  climbs  the  Heights  of 
Stirling.  With  a  simple  "Good-night"  for 
mother  and  father  she  goes  to  her  room. 
There  she  reads  Duncan's  letter  to  his  mother, 
which,  at  his  suggestion,  has  come  to  her  by 
the  exchange  with  Mrs.  McLeod  at  their 
parting. 

"How  the  mining  success  and  the  shares 
voted  him  would  appeal  to  father's  pride!" 
she  whispers  to  herself  as  she  devours  the  let 
ter.  "  Oh !  oh ! "  sKe  goes  on  tremblingly,  for 
she  has  reached  the  account  of  the  explosion  ; 
"  but  the  hero  1  the  hero  1 "  When,  however, 
she  comes  to  the  heart-revealings  at  the  end 
she  cannot  speak,  and  has  again  and  again  to 
clear  her  eyes. 

Then  she  kneels.  She  joins  the  praying 
ones,  Janet  McLeod,  the  residents  of  Stirling 
House,  Liverpool, — yes,  and  John  and  Annie 
Gordon,  for  they  are  interceding  too.  But  the 
Lord  Chief  Marshal  has  been  growling  outside 
her  door.  She  has  said  to  herself,  "  Self-mas 
tery  ! "  again.  She  cannot  pray.  "  Light ! 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    123 

light ! "  she  cries,  but  there  is  only  darkness, 
for  she  is  herself  extinguishing  the  light. 

So  she  retires.  All  night  it  is  a  troubled 
sleep.  She  dreams  of  mountains  and  mines, 
of  Liverpool  docks  and  the  Southern  Cross; 
now  her  mother  is  chiding  her;  now  her 
father  is  kissing  her  approvingly,  but  for  what, 
she  cannot  guess.  At  last  she  is  a  little  girl 
again,  at  Janet's  for  Bible  study,  and  sees 
there  a  boy  bending  over  his  Greek,  who  will 
not  deign  her  so  much  as  a  look.  And  Janet 
seems  out  of  patience  with  her,  too ;  but  the 
boy  is  so  honest  and  sturdy  and  strong,  and 
knows  so  much,  that  she  steals  up  behind  his 
chair,  curls  herself  into  a  heap  on  the  floor, 
makes  a  pillow  of  the  hard  back  round  of  the 
chair,  finds  it  soft  as  down,  and  so  falls  into  a 
peaceful  sleep. 

When  she  wakes,  the  sun  is  an  hour  high. 
She  breakfasts  in  bed.  Then,  in  a  wrapper, 
seated  beside  her  desk,  she  reaches  down,  from 
a  shelf  of  French  authors,  "Les  Miserables." 
She  reads  of  the  good  bishop ;  of  how  he 
saves  the  convict,  Jean  Valjean  ;  of  that  saved 
man  as  manufacturer,  mayor,  philanthropist ; 
of  his  surrendering  himself  to  be  galley  slave 


124          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

again,  to  save  an  innocent  man  convicted  of 
two  petty  thefts  which  he  himself  committed 
before  the  light  broke.  She  comes  to  the 
words,  before  the  crowded  court, — for  M.  le 
Maire  has  been  sorely  tempted  to  let  the  inno 
cent  man  suffer,  and  to  save  himself : 

44  You  all,  all  who  are  here,  think  me  worthy  of  pity,  do 
you  not  ?  Great  God  !  when  I  think  of  what  I  have  been 
on  the  point  of  doing,  I  think  myself  worthy  of  envy." 

"  That  is  it,"  says  Kathleen ;  "  the  sacredness 
and  joy  of  duty,  however  much  it  costs ! " 

But  she  is  suspicious  of  the  fervor  even  of 
Yictor  Hugo.  This  time  she  reaches  to  a  shelf 
of  Greek  classics.  She  takes  down  her  Plato. 
She  is  fond  of  Jowett,  and  of  his  incompa 
rable  translation,  but  prefers  the  original.  She 
reads  the  last  paragraphs  of  the  "Apology." 
Then  she  opens  at  the  "  Phaedo."  Homer  is 
her  rest  and  song;  Plato  is  her  calm  and 
triumph.  When  the  moving  end  is  reached, 
she  turns  back  to  reread  these  words  of 
Socrates : 

"  But  then,  O  my  friends,  he  said,  if  the  soul  is  really  im 
mortal,  what  care  should  be  taken  of  her,  not  only  in  re 
spect  of  the  portion  of  time  which  is  called  life,  but  of 
eternity  !  And  the  danger  of  neglecting  her  from  this  point 
of  view  does  indeed  appear  to  be  awful." 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    125 

John  Gordon  is  in  Glasgow  to-day.  His 
wife  will  lunch  in  her  room.  They  have  de 
cided,  after  careful  deliberation,  to  take  no 
hand  in  Kathleen's  problem,  especially  as  they 
find  themselves  shrinking  greatly  from  a  trans 
atlantic  residence  for  their  daughter.  But,  if 
she  asks  them,  they  have  agreed  to  espouse 
Duncan  McLeod's  cause. 

Stirred  to  the  depths  by  the  "Phaedo," 
Kathleen  dresses,  lunches,  has  tender,  silent 
moments  with  her  mother,  and,  in  taking 
leave,  says : 

"  Pray  for  me,  mother  dear." 

"I  am  praying  every  moment,  Kathleen," 
answers  Annie  Gordon. 

And  now,  this  glorious  afternoon,  first  Ab 
bey  Craig,  with  its  Wallace  Monument ;  then 
the  ruin  of  Cambuskenneth  Abbey;  then  St. 
Ninian,  with  a  brief  call  there  on  Margaret 
Campbell  and  her  children ;  and,  finally,  Ban- 
nockburn,  are  the  objectives  of  this  sorely  per 
plexed  young  woman  in  her  walk.  She  wishes 
to  be  alone.  She  wishes  vigorous,  heartening 
exercise.  She  wishes  to  stir  her  soul  with 
noble  scenery,  and  with  the  great  memories  of 
her  country.  She  is  trying  hard  to  decide 


126          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

aright.  She  is  praying,  moment  by  moment, 
not  to  be  warped  in  her  judgment. 

She  is  at  the  Bore  Stone  now.  In  this  per 
forated  rock,  on  the  crest  of  the  great  battle 
field,  Bruce  fixed  the  standard  of  Scotland  on 
that  fateful  day.  She  knows  its  story  by 
heart.  Every  knoll,  every  turn  in  the  little 
burn,  has  its  meaning  for  her.  She  sees 
Bruce's  small  army.  She  sees  that  of  Edward 
II,  thrice  its  size.  On  the  one  side  are  pov 
erty,  hunger,  the  yeomen  with  their  pikes ;  on 
the  other  are  wealth,  prestige,  mailed  knights 
with  their  splendid  horses  and  gleaming  lances, 
the  finest  army  of  Europe.  On  one  side  is 
freedom ;  on  the  other,  tyranny.  On  one  side 
is  the  old  order  of  chivalry ;  on  the  other  are 
the  rising  ranks  of  the  plain  people.  She  sees 
the  proud  onset.  She  hears  the  first  terrible 
crash.  What?  It  is  the  horsemen  that  go 
down !  It  is  the  solid  squares  that  cannot  be 
broken !  Bruce,  and  the  few,  and  the  hungry, 
triumph.  Edward,  and  the  many,  and  the 
well-conditioned,  are  vanquished.  Scotland  is 
free.  A  new  day,  with  these  yeomen,  their 
squares  and  their  pikes,  breaks  for  the  world. 

Kathleen  looks  all  about.    No  one  is  in 


'IT  MIGHT   HAVE  BEEN  JOAN  OF  ARC  PASSING  ON    HER  WAY  " 


Kathleen  Gordon's  Coronation  Day    127 

sight.  She  reaches  her  slender  hand  through 
the  iron  grating  that  guards  the  rock,  and  pats 
it  caressingly.  She  lifts  herself.  She  sings 
Burns'  Hymn  of  the  Battle,  beginning  with 
that  bugle  summons : 

"  Scots,  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled, 
Scots,  whain  Bruce  has  aften  led, 
Welcome  to  your  gory  bed 
Or  to  victorie!" 

Oh,  could  you  have  seen  her  then,  you 
would  have  understood  what  it  is  that  has 
made  Scotland  great !  You  would  have  known 
why  its  race  conquers  everywhere. 

She  turns.  "  I  know  my  answer,"  she  says. 
She  bends  her  steps  toward  Stirling.  The 
westering  sun,  dipping  toward  Ben  Lomond, 
lights  her  face,  and  is  a  splendor  in  her  hair. 
It  might  have  been  Joan  of  Arc  passing  on 
her  way. 


VIII 


"  THIS   DO  "  KECOILS   ON   DUNCAN   McLEOD 

,ERHAPS  the  reader  will 
comprehend  Duncan  Mc- 
Leod.  To  the  writer  he 
is,  in  certain  respects,  an 
enigma. 

Doubtless  the   first  im 
pression    he    made    upon 
you,  was  that  of  a  man 
doing  things.    But  a  hun 
dred  men  doing  things  would  not  impress  you 
as  Duncan  did. 

As  a  child,  or  as  a  maturer  person,  did  you 
chance  to  see  the  Corliss  engine,  at  the  Centen 
nial  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia  ?  That  was 
before  the  days  of  the  magic  transference  of 
power  by  electricity.  Shafts,  gearing,  belts, 
transferred  it  then.  The  Corliss  engine,  by  such 
cumbrous  connections,  was  the  man  Friday, 
doing  the  bulk  of  the  work  of  the  great  Cen 
tennial  Show.  But  when  you  came  upon  it,  in 
128 


"This  Do"  Recoils  129 

the  high,  sunny  room  that,  like  a  glass  case,  sur 
rounded  it,  and  looked  up  at  it,  gleaming  there 
like  burnished  silver,  and  moving  so  silently 
that  you  might  hear  your  watch  tick  in  its 
presence,  your  credulity  was  taxed.  It 
could  n't  possibly  be  doing  all  that !  Why, 
it  was  but  as  a  boy  at  play,  or  as  a  girl  skip 
ping  rope ! 

That  was  the  way  Duncan  McLeod  did 
things,  as  if  for  the  grace  and  joy  of  doing 
them.  He  had  realized,  whether  he  ever  read 
the  essay  or  not,  Horace  BushnelFs  "  Work  and 
Play." 

Moral  purpose  was  the  next  thing  about 
Duncan  that  struck  you.  Everything,  to  his 
mind,  even  the  huge  ore  crushers,  existed  for 
character.  He  had  experienced  some  crushing 
himself,  for  that  matter. 

By  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  you 
wondered  whether  this  did  not  a  little  weary 
you.  Couldn't  Duncan  interject,  possibly, 
something  non-moral,  to  relieve  the  tension? 
Just  then,  most  likely,  you  heard  him  laugh ; 
and,  after  that,  you  could  bear  twelve  hours, 
or  twelve  years,  of  his  moral  strenuousness. 

Similarly,  Colonel  Higginson  says   that  he 


130          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

never  understood  Thomas  Carlyle  until  he  took 
his  first  walk  with  him.  After  a  terrible, 
scathing  and  pulverizing  remark,  during  the 
walk,  Carlyle  burst  into  a  loud  laugh.  The 
laugh  was  a  sort  of  foot-note  to  the  remark.  It 
indicated  that  what  had  been  said  might  be 
diluted  with  thirty-three  and  one-third  parts 
humor.  Colonel  Higginson  thenceforth  read 
the  sarcasm  and  vitriol  of  the  great  essayist  so 
diluted. 

Take  two  instances  of  Duncan  McLeod's 
humor,  mainly  repressed,  but  breaking  out 
reassuringly  now  and  then : 

Patrick  Sullivan  chewed  more  tobacco  than 
any  three  men  in  the  camp.  He  bore,  prior  to 
the  mutiny,  a  nickname  that  implied  this  pre 
eminence.  When,  then,  notwithstanding  that 
it  was  a  moment  of  extreme  peril,  Duncan 
quenched  in  Sullivan's  saliva  the  lighted  punk 
that  was  to  have  exploded  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine,  only  the  darkness  hid  the  twitching 
mirth-lines  in  his  face. 

When,  again,  Duncan  had  persuaded  Simp- 
kins,  the  newspaper  man  from  Salt  Lake  City, 
that  the  mutiny  was  only  a  Drummond  jollifi 
cation,  he  contained  himself  until  the  stage 


"This  Do"  Recoils  131 

that  bore  Simpkins  away  had  disappeared 
around  a  point  of  rocks.  Then  he  sought  out 
a  dark  place  behind  the  ore  crushers,  where  the 
noise  was  deafening,  and  there,  detected  by  no 
one,  laughed  his  fill  for  the  space  of  ten  min 
utes.  Thereupon  he  reappeared  wearing  the 
solemnity  of  a  pall-bearer. 

Duncan  most  baffled  you,  however,  in  his 
character.  Notwithstanding  his  devoutness, 
he  had  a  temper.  At  a  supreme  moment  of 
his  life,  that  with  which  this  history  closes, 
he  was,  not  ten  minutes  earlier,  in  a  mood 
to  overturn  gravestones,  but  restrained  him 
self. 

He  adhered  tenaciously,  also,  to  a  curious 
heresy  of  his  about  what  persons  have  a  right 
to  the  truth.  His  throwing  Simpkins  on  a 
false  trail,  illustrated  it.  His  course  toward 
one  a  hundred  times  keener  than  Simpkins 
will  illustrate  it,  as  these  chapters  succeed 
one  another.  This  heresy  the  more  puzzled 
you,  because  you  often  said  to  yourself, 
"Duncan  McLeod  has  the  truest  soul  I  ever 
knew." 

Duncan,  once  more,  was  subject  to  fierce 
temptations,  and,  little  though  you  would 


132          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

think  it,  might  easily  have  been  a  bad  man. 
After  the  crisis  with  which  the  present  chap 
ter  ends,  for  example,  a  battle  of  Titans 
ensued  within  him.  First,  he  was  strongly 
impelled  to  plunge  into  rank  sin;  next,  to 
contract  a  marriage  of  convenience ;  next,  to 
turn  ascetic,  with  all  the  vengef  ulness  that  his 
hard  lines  suggested,  and  with  all  the  abandon 
that  went  with  his  prodigious  will.  These 
were,  successively,  actual  and  terrible  temp 
tations  to  him.  The  beaded  sweat  poured 
from  him  as  he  wrestled  with  them.  He  de 
spised  all  of  them ;  he  fairly  loathed  the  first ; 
the  power  which  they  nevertheless  exercised 
over  his  mind  made  him  reckon  himself  the 
chief  of  sinners ;  and  yet  he  actually  found  his 
hand,  more  than  once,  on  the  door-knob,  to  go 
forth  in  an  evil  way,  so  was  he  in  those  dread 
ful  hours  sifted  as  wheat.  Only  the  Lamb  of 
God  took  away  from  him  these  impulses,  and 
gave  back  to  the  men  of  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine  him  whose  words  so  moved  them  the 
next  Sunday.  "  In  all  points  tempted  like  as 
we  are,"  was  Scripture  often  on  his  lips. 

Duncan  McLeod,  to   conclude,  was  several 
men  in  one.    It  might  suffice  to  call  him  a 


"This  Do"  Recoils  133 

"  Celt,"  and  to  leave  it  there,  but  for  the  fact 
that  that  would  say  quite  too  little.  But  those 
several  men  in  one  were  a  glory.  "When 
Duncan's  letter,  thrust  within  her  dress,  trans 
figured  Kathleen  Gordon's  face,  it  was  with 
adequate  and  ennobling  cause. 

Now  that  the  writer  has  made  his  peace 
with  the  reader  concerning  certain  enigmatic 
elements  in  Duncan  McLeod, — or,  rather,  has 
proffered  a  flag  of  truce, — he  has  an  easier 
mind.  He  has  henceforth  only  to  depict  the 
man  faithfully,  without  fear  of  being  interro 
gated  about  him,  or  of  being  presumed  en 
tirely  to  have  fathomed  him. 

What  with  our  friends  in  Fall  River  and  in 
Scotland,  it  must  be  confessed  that  we  have 
left  the  two  men  of  our  first  chapter,  by  the 
oil  lamp  in  the  mill  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine, 
far  too  long. 

Duncan  McLeod  seemed  to  be,  as  the  reader 
will  recall,  under  some  peculiar  pressure.  In 
point  of  fact,  as  the  sequel  will  show,  he  had 
reason  to  be.  He  repeatedly  interrupted  John 
Hope  in  his  argument.  He  spoke  without  his 
wonted  deliberation.  His  vehemence  almost 


134          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

overbore  John,  who,  as  he  remembered  all 
that  Duncan  had  done  for  the  mine  and  for  its 
men,  felt  strangely  abashed.  "  Deeds,  John, 
my  man,  are  the  things,"  Duncan  was  saying. 
His  voice  suddenly  sank  almost  to  a  whisper, 
yet  you  could  hear  it,  for  the  quality  in  it, 
above  the  roar  of  the  machinery,  and  it  said 
"  THIS  Do." 

But  John  Hope  was  not  one  to  be  put  down. 
"Duncan,"  he  said,  "suffer  me  a  few  words 
without  interruption,  please." 

"  Pardon  me,"  answered  Duncan ;  and,  real 
izing  that  his  side  of  their  debate  had  been 
hardly  courteous,  he  gave  John  his  hand  as  if 
to  make  amends,  offered  him  a  chair,  and  the 
two  sat  down  to  finish  the  talk. 

"  I  admire  Charles  M.  Sheldon,  whom  you 
adduce,"  John  proceeded,  "  and  that  very  dif 
ferent  man,  Henry  Drummond,  whom  you 
connect  with  him,  more  than  I  can  tell.  It  is 
a  complicated  question,  because  of  the  mystery 
that  there  always  was  about  Drummond,  but 
I  do  not  understand,  as  you  seem  to,  that  their 
propositions  are  identical.  That,  however,  is 
immaterial  at  this  point. 

"Sheldon  has  confronted  Protestant  Chris- 


"This  Do"  Recoils  135 

tendom  with  the  question,  Will  it  live  its  relig 
ion?  To  have  successfully  done  that, — and 
Sheldon  has  successfully  done  it, — were  worth 
many  lifetimes  of  service.  '  This  do,'  as  you 
put  it,  is,  thus,  his  proposition.  Most  probably 
he  has  another,  but  this  is  mainly  in  evidence. 

"Now  I  make  bold  to  say,  that  'This  do ' 
will  not  do  it.  I  do  not  think,  either,  that 
Sheldon  supposes  that  it  will,  by  itself  alone, 
or  wishes  his  readers  to  infer  that  it  will. 
Such  a  position  is  that  of  John  the  Fore 
runner,  not  of  Jesus.  It  is  a  part  of  Jesus' 
position,  but  it  is  the  minor  premise  of  it. 
'He  appointed  twelve,  that  they  might  be  with 
him,1 — that  is  the  major  premise.  '  And  that 
he  might  send  them  forth,' — that  is  the  minor 
premise. 

"  I  can  suggest  my  reasons  for  this  conclu 
sion  in  a  very  few  words : 

"  The  major  premise  underruns  Paul — '  That 
I  may  know  him.'  It  is  the  glow  of  Peter — 
'Who  .  .  .  begat  us  again  unto  a  living 
hope.'  That  it  is  the  heart  of  John,  who  out 
weighs  them  all,  requires  but  to  be  stated.  It 
is  the  supreme  note  of  that  early  and  great 
Greek  Christianity,  which  the  impulse  of 


136          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Kome  toward  organization  smothered.  It 
marks  the  most  vital  of  the  Keformers. 
Maurice,  Phillips  Brooks,  and,  if  I  understand 
him,  Drummond,  center  there.  It  is  what 
made  my  mother  the  Christian  she  is,  and,  as 
I  doubt  not,  your  mother. 

"My  father,  if  I  may  illustrate,  sleeps  on 
a  hillside  overlooking  Narragansett  Bay.  I 
would  go  to  the  world's  end  for  an  hour  with 
him.  Why?  For  what  he  did?  That  was 
great.  For  what  he  insisted  that  we  children 
should  do  ?  That  was  much.  E"o,  no ;  for  what 
he  was,  the  rather.  To  be  with  him,  to  be  in 
his  atmosphere,  was  of  itself  a  liberal  educa 
tion  to  us,  and  to  many  others.  Do  you  sup 
pose  that  Jesus  would  disuse  the  corresponding 
force  ? 

"  Moreover,  I  have  tried  '  This  do.'  It  is  a 
stress,  a  self-consciousness,  a  narrowing.  You 
judge  yourself,  and  you  judge  others.  Action 
as  the  correlate  of  volition  is,  indeed,  indis 
pensable  ;  but  volition,  or,  rather,  personality, 
is  primary,  and  must  be  given  the  supreme 
place. 

"  This  subject  has  been  with  me  for  months ; 
in  fact,  tentatively,  for  a  much  longer  time.  I 


"This  Do"  Recoils  137 

think  I  touch  bottom  at  length.  I  propose  to 
build  now.  '  Abide  in  me,  and  I  in  you.'  '  In 
him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of 
men.'  Our  gospel,  in  short,  Duncan,  unless  I 
mistake,  is  the  gospel  of  a  living,  present,  now 
Saviour,  all  authority  given  unto  him,  and  he 
with  us  always." 

John  Hope's  eyes,  as  he  ended,  shone  like 
stars. 

Duncan  McLeod  shook  his  head  doubtfully. 
"  Good-night,"  said  both  the  men. 

The  transcontinental  mail  had  been  delayed 
six  hours  by  snow  along  the  Divide.  The 
stage  was  correspondingly  late,  arriving  at 
midnight;  and  both  the  men's  packages  of 
letters  had  been  thrown  into  their  rooms 
while  they  were  talking.  Duncan  ran  over 
the  addresses  on  his  with  feverish  anxiety. 
The  letter  he  had  expected  for  six  days,  and  be 
cause  of  the  delay  of  which  he  had  grown 
nervous, — though  no  one  knew  it,  but  only  that 
he  was  abrupt  and  tense,  as  in  the  dialogue 
with  John  Hope, — was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
pile,  marked, "  Missent  to  Alameda,  California." 

He  opened  it,  with  a  heart  that  almost 
stopped  beating,  and  read  as  follows : 


138          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Stirling,  November  5. 
"  MY  DEAR  MB.  MCL.EOD  : 

"  I  thank  you,  more  than  I  can  tell,  for 
your  beautiful  and  noble  letter.  I  should  not 
like  you  to  know  how  deeply  it  has  moved  me. 

"  I  have  seen  your  mother.  She  was  like  an 
angel  to  me.  She  gave  me  your  letter  to  her. 
The  heroism  of  your  rescue  of  Douglas  Camp 
bell!  The  goodness  of  God  in  sparing  you 
both!  I  called  on  Margaret  Campbell  and 
her  children  this  afternoon.  They  can  hardly 
speak  of  you  without  glad  tears. 

"  My  mother  and  father  are  on  the  favoring 
hand.  I  knew  they  would  be,  the  moment  I 
opened  your  letter. 

"  Mr.  McLeod,  God  only  knows  the  pain  it 
is  to  write  you  what  I  must  now  write.  You 
will  be  brave,  I  know,  to  bear  the  sorrow,  and 
to  consider,  and,  as  I  hope,  to  respect  my  rea 
sons  for  inflicting  it.  Eemember,  please,  that 
it  hurts  me,  too. 

"  I  must  say,  No. 

"  For  another  ?    No. 

"  For  aught  lacking  in  you  ?  Far  otherwise. 
Your  reference  to  my  '  renown '  I  fail  to  com 
prehend.  I  have,  however,  one  honor.  It  is 


"This  Do"  Recoils  139 

the  highest  I  could  wish.  None  other,  so 
great,  will  ever  come  to  me.  Duncan  McLeod 
has  asked  me  to  be  his  wife ! 

"Not,  either,  because  I  disbelieve  in,  or 
shrink  from,  marriage.  How  could  I,  with 
the  perpetual  romance  between  my  father  and 
my  mother  always  going  on  in  this  house? 
No.  Pure  and  deep  loving  is  God's  way. 
The  Bible  is  full  of  it.  I  have  lately  been 
making  a  study  of  the  Song  of  Songs.  I 
doubt  not  you  are  familiar  with  its  large 
meanings,  as  devout  modern  scholarship  inter 
prets  them. 

"  My  reason,  the  rather,  is  duty.  It  is  our 
Saviour's,  'This  do.'  You  are  several  years 
older  than  I.  You  have  lived  nobly.  I  am 
thinking  that  you  have  found,  as  I  am  com 
ing  to  find,  that  there  is  no  joy  like  that. 

"  But  duty,  wherein  ? 

"First,  Scotland.  Lwas  at  the  Bore  Stone 
to-day.  I  lived  over  again  that  mighty 
heroism.  Is  there  anything  we  ought  not  to 
be  willing  to  sacrifice  for  Scotland  ?  But  it  is 
the  people  like  you  that  leave  her.  Dr.  Wat 
son,  whom  I  hear  when  in  Liverpool,  says  that 
he  finds  them  all  over  the  United  States.  Not 


140          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  there  are  not  good  and  strong  people  left 
at  home,  but  oh,  her  need  is  so  great,  so  press 
ing  !  For  her  sake  I  would  not  expatriate 
myself. 

"Next,  economics.  You  are  a  prosperous 
man.  Judging  from  present  indications,  you 
are  likely  to  be  very  rich  before  you  die.  It 
is  in  you.  You  can  hardly  help  it.  My  fa 
ther  also  has  wealth.  I  know  that  that  has 
not  influenced  you.  You  would  take  me,  per 
haps,  all  the  quicker  from  a  cottage,  as  my 
father  took  my  mother.  But  people  have 
little  idea  how  much  my  father  has,  he  is  so 
secretive.  Double  up  riches,  then,  by  mar 
riage,  even  by  a  holy  marriage  ?  How  does 
that  look  ?  How  does  it  strike  poor  people, 
those,  for  instance,  among  whom  I  work? 
Does  it  not  dishearten  them,  and  justly  ?  Is 
it,  Mr.  McLeod,  looking  largely  at  it,  a  right 
thing  ? 

"Once  more,  economics,  but  in  a  sense 
which  I  must  ask  you  to  hold  in  strict  con 
fidence.  My  father  is  a  great  admirer  of  Mr. 
Carnegie.  They  sometimes  meet.  Some  of 
the  great  steel  man's  plans  are  known  to  my 
father, — libraries,  universities,  the  '  crime  of 


"This  Do"  Recoils  141 

dying  rich'!  My  father  seeks  to  emulate 
him.  In  his  secretive  way, — with  the  best  of 
intentions,  too, — he  is  silently  laying  his  hand 
on  this  branch  of  his  two  specialties,  and  on 
that.  He  designs,  if  possible,  to  control  both 
of  them  in  this  country,  and  so  to  pile  up  ad 
ditional  millions.  Then,  as  he  thinks,  he  will 
build  libraries,  and  endow  universities. 

"Meantime,  the  small  concerns  crushed! 
the  wages  kept  low !  the  honest  and  industri 
ous  people  in  the  workhouses  in  old  age  !  the 
hunger,  the  cold,  the  despair,  the  crime !  Be 
cause  combination  is  good, — and  it  doubtless 
has  merits, — is  that  sort  of  combination  good  ? 
Ought  not  brotherhood,  and  love,  and  a 
chance  for  everybody,  to  be  in  it,  instead  of 
power  only,  and  a  chance  for  a  few  ?  *  Pov 
erty  is  good,'  my  father  says ;  l  it  made  me.' 
It  did  not  make  him,  begging  his  pardon. 
Other  things  made  him,  in  spite  of  his  poverty, 
rather  than  because  of  it.  Why,  too,  if  it  is 
good,  does  he  not  try  it  on  Kathleen? 

"Mr.  McLeod,  this  sort  of  thing  darkens 
my  days.  It  is  the  same  in  principle  as 
Edward  II.  It  is  the  new  tyranny.  Ban- 
nockburn  is  needed  again,  bloodless,  but  not 


142          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

less  heroic.  My  influence  is  great  with  my 
father.  I  have  sometimes  dissuaded  him.  I 
must  stay  by,  and  do  what  I  can  in  such 
directions. 

"  I  have  not  spoken  of  my  social  settlement 
work.  Melbourne  is  calling  me.  The  need 
of  settlements,  both  in  Australia  and  at  home, 
is  appalling.  But  this  work  has  touched  the 
popular  heart.  Workers  are  in  training  for 
it.  Perhaps  it,  of  itself,  would  not  detain  me. 

"  May  I  ask  two  favors  ? 

"You  will  not,  please,  try  to  reopen  this 
matter  ?  Kindly  spare  me  the  pain. 

"  Also,  you  will  not  think  hard  of  me  ?  I 
could  not  bear  that.  You  will  respect  me, 
and  breathe  a  prayer  for  me  sometimes  ? 

"  Mr.  McLeod,  God  fill  your  life  with  light 
and  love !    God  help  us  both  to  fulfil  our 
Saviour's  word,  *  THIS  Do ' ! 
"  Sincerely  yours, 

"  KATHLEEN  GOKDON." 

Duncan  McLeod  bowed  Jiis  head.  He  was 
hard  hit.  The  shaft  had  entered  between  the 
joints  of  the  harness.  The  dearest  hope  of  his 
life  was  slain.  Not  only  so,  but  the  arrow 


"THIS  DO"  RECOILS 


"This  Do"  Recoils  143 

that  slew  it  was  feathered  with  that  principle 
in  religion  which  he  had,  within  an  hour,  been 
stoutly  upholding  against  John  Hope's  con 
tention,  and  around  which  he  had  builded  all 
his  maturer  life.  His  thinking  swiftly  grew 
impersonal.  His  mind  seemed  to  reel.  His 
whole  being  was  shaken.  Within  a  half 
hour's  brief  space,  the  ground  beneath  his  feet 
and  the  sky  above  him  seemed  to  have  been 
rolled  together  as  a  scroll,  and  to  have  van 
ished,  leaving  him  but  as  a  shade  flitting 
through  Erebus. 


IX 


A   RIGHTEOUS   MAN'S   EEPENTANCE 

HE  occurrences  at  the  end 
of  the  last  chapter  be 
longed  to  a  Monday  night. 
On  the  morning  of  the 
following  Saturday  there 
appeared  on  the  bulletin- 
board,  in  front  of  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mining 
Company's  office,  a  notice  to  the  effect  that 
there  would  be  a  religious  service  in  the  hall 
of  the  Miners'  Club  at  half  past  ten  o'clock 
the  next  morning.  When  the  notice  was  read 
by  the  men,  many  a  heart  leaped.  It  would 
be  the  first  time  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

"  Who  will  preach  ?  "  was  asked  on  every 
hand.  "  Some  friend  of  the  management, 
visiting  the  mine,  no  doubt,"  was  the  general 
reply ;  and  all  who  could  do  so,  planned  to 
meet  the  stage  when  it  should  arrive  at  six 

o'clock  that  afternoon,  and  to  give  the  minis- 
144 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     145 

ter  a  rousing  welcome.  But  the  stage  was  an 
hour  later  that  night  than  it  had  been  on 
Monday,  and,  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
the  men  were  in  bed. 

At  precisely  nine  o'clock  the  next  day,  the 
mine  bell  began  ringing.  "A  fire,  an  acci 
dent,"  thought  everybody ;  but  it  rang  so  de 
liberately  and  so  cheerfully  for  the  space  of 
exactly  five  minutes,  that  Lemuel  Higgins, 
from  Connecticut,  at  the  end  of  the  second 
minute  drawled  out  in  his  queer  way,  "  Why, 
ef  it  ain't  the  nine  o'clock  bell  a-ringin',  same 
as  in  Eocky  Hill !  I  declare  fer  it,  ef  the  Sab 
bath  ain't  moved  clar  out  West ! "  "  It  is  the 
church  bell,  the  church  bell ! "  shouted  some 
one  else,  and  his  cry  was  caught  up  all  over 
the  camp,  while  many  an  eye  moistened. 
Sunday  was  always  quiet,  in  those  days,  at 
the  Annie  Laurie,  but  a  hush  now  fell  on  the 
camp  like  the  peace  of  God.  The  notes  of 
that  bell,  awakening  a  thousand  memories,  of 
the  British  Isles,  of  New  England,  of  the  At 
lantic  seaboard,  and  of  the  Interior,  healed 
men's  souls  like  a  sacrament. 

At  just  quarter  past  ten,  for  precisely  five 
minutes  more,  the  bell  rang  again  in  the  same 

10 


146          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

manner.  Then,  for  five  minutes  before  the 
half  hour,  it  tolled,  winding  up,  on  the  second, 
with  three  quick  strokes. 

On  the  quarter  hour,  more  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  men,  in  their  best  attire,  and,  though 
their  appearance  was  rugged,  looking  gentle 
men,  all  of  them,  stood  before  the  Miners' 
Club.  On  the  first  stroke  of  the  bell,  the 
doors  swung  open,  and  the  men  began  filing 
in.  As  the  solemn  but  cheerful  tones  of  the 
bell  hovered  over  them,  "  Is  n't  it  good  ? " 
"It  is  the  first  time  I've  felt  at  home!" 
"  Bless  God !  "  and  similar  hushed  ejaculations 
burst  from  the  throng;  and  one,  a  Scottish 
Highlander,  said,  as  if  out  of  a  trance : 

"  Therefore  will  I  remember  thee  from  the  land  of  Jordan, 
And  of  the  Hermonites,  from  the  hill  Mizar  ! ' ' 

When,  on  the  half  hour,  the  triple  stroke 
came,  not  a  man  in  the  camp  who  could  be 
out  of  bed,  and  who  was  not  detained  by  the 
few  necessary  duties  of  the  mine,  had  failed 
to  enter  the  hall. 

Fresh  surprises  awaited  them.  There,  on 
the  platform,  stood  a  high-grade  portable 
organ.  "Under  each  chair  was  a  book-rack. 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     147 

In  each  rack  were  a  Bible,  a  hymn  book,  and 
a  small  volume  containing  responsive  readings, 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  a  few  collects,  etc.  The 
books  were  all  of  good  print,  well  bound,  and 
stamped  with  the  words : 

THE  PROPERTY 

of 
TEE  CHRISTIAN  MEN 

of  the 
ANNIE  LAURIE  MINE. 

On  the  back  cover  ran,  in  the  same  clear  gold 
letters,  the  legend : 

FROM  A  FRIEND— HUMBLY  MAKING  AMENDS. 

The  man — he  was  the  Highlander  just  men 
tioned — who,  on  request  for  a  volunteer,  came 
forward  to  play  the  organ,  observed  both  of  the 
above  inscriptions,  on  a  small  silver  plate,  let 
into  the  woodwork  of  the  instrument. 

As  the  men  read  the  words,  "  The  Property 
of  the  Christian  Men  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine," 
an  exulting  look  came  into  the  faces  of  scores. 
Many  of  them  leaned  toward  one  another,  as 
if  to  touch  shoulders.  They  felt,  for  the  first 
time,  that  they  were  members  of  a  brotherhood 
more  sacred  and  lasting  than  that  of  the  Club, 
or  than  that  of  the  mine  they  were  all  so 


148          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

proud  of,  or  than  those  indicated  by  the  fra 
ternity  badges  which  some  of  them  wore. 
And  while  the  Highlander  buried  his  face  in 
his  hands,  there  on  his  organ  stool,  awaiting 
the  first  hymn,  he  whispered :  "  O  God,  I  thank 
thee  for  hallowing  the  Annie  Laurie  bell. 
When  it  summons  us  to  the  midnight  shift,  it 
will  be  as  thy  voice  speaking.  I  thank  thee 
for  hallowing  this  hall.  When  we  debate 
within  its  walls,  it  will  be  as  if  the  Assembly 
debated  at  Westminster." 

When  the  bell  began  tolling,  and  no  minis 
ter  appeared,  an  anxious  look  came  over  the 
company,  as  if  the  men  had  said,  "But  will 
there  be  a  service  after  all  ?  "  A  few  of  them 
had  by  this  time  come  to  know,  moreover, 
through  the  night  watchman,  that  no  such  per 
son  had  arrived  by  the  belated  stage.  The 
men  sat,  however,  perfectly  silent.  As  the 
triple  stroke  of  the  bell  died  away,  the  ticking 
of  the  clock  seemed  almost  painfully  loud. 

Then  Duncan  McLeod  entered  the  door, 
walked  straight  to  the  platform,  and  said,  in 
his  swift,  inspiring  way :  "  Shall  we  not  bow 
our  heads,  all  of  us,  in  silent  prayer ;  and  then, 
on  a  signal,  rise,  and  say  together  the  Lord's 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance    149 

Prayer?  Let  us  use,  in  doing  so,  the  word 
<  debtors.' " 

Like  one  man  the  heads  went  down.  The 
stillness  was  profound. 

"Now!"  said  Duncan  after  a  little;  and, 
like  one  man  again,  the  men  stood,  bent  rev 
erently  forward,  and  offered  together,  as  if 
with  one  voice,  but  thunderous  from  its  vol 
ume,  the  most  comprehensive  of  all  prayers. 

When  the  men  were  again  seated,  and  the 
volunteer  organist  had  been  secured,  Duncan 
stated  that  the  company,  through  Mr.  Hope, 
had  now  granted  the  free  use  of  the  hall  for 
religious  services,  as  it  had  all  along  done  for 
other  meetings.  "In  view  of  this  fact,"  he 
added,  "  it  seems  proper,  before  we  have  done 
anything  at  this  service  but  pray,  that  Mr. 
Hope  should  be  heard  from." 

John  Hope,  who  sat  with  Douglas  Campbell 
half  way  down  the  hall,  accordingly  came  for 
ward,  and,  without  ascending  the  platform, 
said: 

"Will  Mr.  McLeod  and  this  congregation 
let  me  speak  from  the  floor,  where  I  belong  ? 
For  I  count  myself  one  of  you  in  every  sense. 
The  only  difference  which  I  desire  should  mark 


150          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

me  is,  that,  as  I  hold  the  highest  official  posi 
tion  at  the  mine,  so  I  should  most  serve  it  and 
you  all. 

"  A  chain  of  circumstances,  still  mysterious 
to  me,"  he  continued,  "  but  clear  to  God,  has, 
to  my  amazement,  made  this  service  possible. 
It  all  came  very  suddenly.  Only  in  the  night 
of  Tuesday  was  it  decided  upon.  A  very  long 
telegram  leaving  here  before  daylight  Wednes 
day  morning,  and  all  Wednesday  devoted — by 
a  warm  friend  of  this  mine  residing  in  Denver 
— to  carrying  out  its  details,  have  alone  made 
it  possible  that  organ,  books  and  fittings  are 
here  in  perfect  order  for  our  use  at  this  time. 
Only  Mr.  McLeod  and  I  knew  that  there  was 
to  be  a  -service,  until  the  notice  was  posted 
yesterday  morning.  We  then  took  into  our 
confidence  three  of  your  number,  Messrs. 
Campbell,  McDuff  and  Sullivan.  They  at  once 
volunteered  to  fit  the  racks,  and  to  put  the 
hall  in  order ;  and  they  have  done  their  work 
with  such  silence  and  reserve  that,  as  I  think, 
what  you  found  here  this  morning  was  a  sur 
prise  to  every  one  except  the  five  persons  I 
have  mentioned.  Am  I  not  right  in  this  sup 
position  ?  " 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     151 

"You  are,  sir,"  said  George  Wilkinson, 
president  of  the  Miners'  Club,  rising  in  his 
place ;  "  and,  while  I  am  on  my  feet,  permit  me 
to  say,  that  I  think  I  express  the  sentiment  of 
every  man  present,  when  I  thank  those  three 
men,  as  well  as  yourself,  Mr.  McLeod,  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mining  Company,  and  the  un 
known  donor  of  these  splendid  appliances,  for 
what  has  happened.  It,  I  am  sure,  particularly 
touches  our  hearts,  that  three  of  our  most  es 
teemed  men,  holding  no  official  position  among 
us  of  any  sort,  were  chosen  by  you  to  share 
your  confidence,  and  to  render  service  in  pre 
paring  this  beautiful  surprise.  This  was  en 
tirely  in  keeping  with  that  democratic  and 
considerate  spirit  which  never  fails  to  mark 
the  management  of  this  mine.  All  who  agree 
with  what  I  have  said  will  please  rise,"  he 
added ;  and  the  whole  company  rose. 

"  Thank  you,  Mr.  President  and  men  of  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine,  one  and  all,"  said  John 
Hope,  when  all  were  seated  again.  "  I  have 
but  two  additional  points,  which  will  take 
only  a  moment. 

"  Mr.  McLeod,  as  may  not  be  known  to  you, 
entered  the  University  of  Edinburgh  with  the 


152  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

purpose  of  becoming  a  minister  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland.  While  at  the  university,  by  ex 
traordinary  diligence  in  taking  extra  courses 
of  study,  he  covered  not  only  much  scientific 
and  general  work,  but  also  most  of  the  ground 
usual  in  preparing  students  for  the  ministry. 
He  was  never  licensed  to  preach,  or  ordained, 
because  God  made  clear  to  him  the  duty  of  a 
different  work.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that 
he  turned  to  the  alternate  work  not  without 
deep  regret.  He  has  been  very  diffident  about 
it,  but  I  have  insisted  that  he  should  act  as 
minister  on  this  occasion,  leaving  it  for  you 
to  determine  the  course  of  procedure  in  the 
future." 

The  look  of  surprise,  pride  and  joy  that 
crept  over  the  men's  faces,  as  he  said  these 
words,  John  Hope  will  never  forget.  It  con 
stituted  as  loud  a  "  call  to  the  ministry,"  from 
the  human  side,  as  ever  a  man  had.  Duncan's 
head  was  buried  in  his  hands,  so  he  missed  it. 

"I  see,  from  your  lighted  faces,  that  you 
approve,"  added  John  Hope ;  "  but,  as  I  said, 
arrangements  for  the  time  to  coine  will  be  in 
your  hands.  One  other  point : 

"  This  is  the  first  great  step  toward  realizing 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     153 

what  has  been  my  chief  ambition  for  this  mine. 
I  want  this  mine  to  succeed.  I  want,  if  I  can 
bring  it  about,  that  every  faithful  worker  at 
this  mine,  from  lowest  to  highest,  shall  share 
in  its  prosperity,  over  and  beyond  wages. 
But,  most  of  all,  I  want  this  to  be  a  Christian 
mine,  belonging  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as 
truly  as  the  boats  of  the  fisher  apostles 
belonged  to  him.  Men,  I  am  hoping  that  you 
will  stand  with  me  for  all  these  ends. 

"Mr.  McLeod," — and  here  John  Hope 
turned  toward  the  platform, — "by  its  un 
voiced  and  unrecorded  but  unmistakable 
choice,  as  testified  by  shining  faces,  you  are 
the  minister  of  this  congregation,  subject  to 
its  continued  approval ;  and,  on  its  behalf,  I 
hereby  declare  you  to  be  such." 

"  Amen ! "  "  Amen ! "  "  Amen ! "  rose  from 
all  sides  of  the  house ;  and  a  fervent  voice  rang 
out  the  words :  "  And  would  God  that  every 
mining  company  in  Colorado  had  such  a  presi 
dent  ! "  To  this  sentiment  the  "  Amens  "  were 
equally  as  vociferous  and  unanimous  as  they 
had  been  to  that  about  the  minister. 

John  Hope  returned  to  his  seat  by  Douglas 
Campbell.  Duncan  McLeod  rose,  and  said: 


154          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  I  thank  you,  Mr.  Hope  and  men  of  the  mine. 
May  God  add  his  blessing !  As  we  have  begun 
with  speaking  to  him,  let  us  listen  while  he 
speaks  to  us.  Shall  we  read,  responsively,  the 
Eighty-fourth  Psalm  ?  " 

The  place  is  found  without  much  difficulty. 
A  motion  of  Duncan's  hand  brings  the  audience 
to  its  feet.  The  words, — 

"  How  amiable  are  thy  tabernacles, 
O  Lord  of  hosts  ! 
My  soul  longeth,  yea,  even  fainteth  for 

the  courts  of  the  Lord  : 
My  heart  and  iny  flesh  crieth  out  for  the 

living  God," — 

and  the  rest,  concluding  with, — 

41  O  Lord  of  hosts, 
Blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  thee,"— 

are  read  with  deepest  feeling,  and  the  men  are 
seated  again. 

"  Since  Mr.  McPherson  has  kindly  volun 
teered  for  the  organ,"  Duncan  proceeds,  "it 
has  occurred  to  me  that  possibly  the  double 
quartet  of  the  Miners'  Club  may  be  willing 
to  come  forward  and  lead  our  singing.  They 
should  have  been  consulted  before  the  service, 
for  they  may  have  reasons  why  they  would 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     155 

prefer  not  to  do  so, — reasons  that  we  should  all 
respect.  The  circumstances  have  prevented 
such  consultation.  I  therefore  take  the  lib 
erty  of  asking  them  in  public,  and  will  read  a 
hymn  while  they  think  it  over.  If  they  are 
willing,  it  will  be  greatly  appreciated;  but 
they  must  feel  entirely  free  to  remain  in  their 
places." 

Duncan  begins  to  read.  Before  he  has  fin 
ished  the  first  line,  eight  burly  men,  book  in 
hand,  are  on  their  way  to  the  organ,  where 
they  form  a  double  semicircle  around  Angus 
McPherson.  So,  with  a  "  Thank  you,  gentle 
men,"  Duncan  only  reads  the  first  stanza  of 
the  hymn,  as  follows : 

"Lord,  in  the  morning  thou  shalt  hear 

My  voice  ascending  high  ; 
To  thee  will  I  direct  my  prayer, 
To  thee  lift  up  mine  eye." 

Angus  McPherson  is  a  fine  player.  He  im 
provises  a  moment,  in  the  very  spirit  of  devo 
tion  and  of  the  hymn,  while  the  men,  who  now 
hear  their  organ  for  the  first  time,  note  with 
delight  its  superb  musical  quality.  Then  he 
runs  through  the  tune ;  the  audience  rises  ;  the 
eight  men  seize  the  notes  with  great,  swelling, 


156          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

and  yet  rich  and  deeply  musical  voices ;  and 
the  entire  congregation  joins.  Not  since  the 
morning  stars  sang  together  has  a  hymn  to 
God's  praise  ascended,  until  now,  from  an  area 
more  than  a  hundred  miles  square,  along  those 
mountain  sides  and  over  those  mountain  tops. 
To  many  of  the  men,  too,  it  is  the  first  time 
that  they  have  ever  joined  in,  and,  in  some 
cases,  that  they  have  ever  heard,  adequate 
Christian  praise.  The  effect  is  like  a  miracle. 
Heads  are  thrown  back,  faces  are  transfigured, 
living  is  glorified. 

Duncan,  when  all  are  seated,  reads  the 
Twenty-third  Psahn,  and  the  Beatitudes. 
"  Let  us  pray,"  he  adds,  and  every  head  goes 
down. 

"  O  Lord,"  he  pleads,  "  make  us  indeed  '  to 
lie  down.'  We  do  not  want  to.  We  want 
always  to  be  bustling  about,  and  doing.  We 
deem  our  clatter  dearer  to  thee  than  the  love 
and  devotion  of  our  hearts.  Forgive  us  that 
it  is  so.  May  it  cease  altogether  to  be  so. 
Make  us  poor  in  spirit,  and  so  the  kingdom 
ours.  Make  us  meek,  that  we  may  inherit  all 
best  things.  Make  us  pure  in  heart,  that  we 
may  see  God.  Forgive  us  our  sins,  so  many, 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     157 

so  dark;  perhaps  the  darker,  the  better  we 
seem,  because  much  has  been  given  unto  such. 
Be  with  all  whom  we  love," — at  this  point  his 
voice  breaks  for  a  moment,  and  sobbings  are 
heard  here  and  there  through  the  house, — "  be 
with  all  whom  we  love,  over  land  and  sea. 
Comfort  the  sorrowing.  Succor  the  tempted. 
Strengthen  the  weak.  Bring  light  out  of 
darkness," — here  he  stops  for  an  instant. 
"  Help  us  to  do  right.  What  counts  far  more, 
help  us  to  be  right.  To  our  rightness — and 
even  that  is  alone  from  thee — add  thy  right- 
ness,  even  the  precious  and  incomparable  fruits 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Bless  this  mine.  Make 
it  truly  to  belong  to  Jesus  Christ.  Help  Mr. 
Hope  in  the  fight  that  cannot  but  come.  May 
we  be  a  wall  of  prayer  and  of  fire  round  about 
him  then.  Above  all,  may  we  abide  in  the 
Lord  Jesus,  and  he  in  us.  In  his  name  we 
humbly  beseech  all.  Amen." 

The  men  have  never  heard  such  praying. 
Their  faces,  as  they  lift  their  heads,  are  as  if 
they  had  seen  a  vision.  "  Let  us  sing, — 

1  How  firm  a  foundation,  ye  saints  of  the  Lord,'  " 

says  Duncan,  and  that  great  consolatory  hymn 


158          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

rises  heavenward  like  the  voice  of  many 
waters. 

"All  who  would  like  to  do  so,  are  invited  to 
remain  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour  of  Bible 
study  at  eleven  forty-five,"  he  announces. 
"Mr.  Hope  will  lead  our  study.  At  seven 
thirty  to-night  there  will  be  a  meeting  for 
song,  conference  and  prayer.  Also,  at  seven 
thirty  "Wednesday  evening." 

Though  absorbed  in  the  service,  the  men  are 
more  and  more  centering  their  attention  on 
Duncan.  ISTo  one  saw  him  on  Tuesday,  but 
John  Hope,  and  he  only  for  a  moment,  three 
or  four  times,  as  he  entered  Duncan's  room  to 
do  him  some  service.  From  Wednesday  on, 
Duncan  carried  every  duty,  but  avoided  peo 
ple,  so  that  not  a  dozen  of  the  men  had  seen 
him  until  he  appeared  in  the  hall  Sunday 
morning.  Others  were  at  the  fore  early  in 
the  service,  and  Duncan,  meantime,  kept  be 
hind  the  desk  all  he  could,  his  face  in  his  hands 
much  of  the  time.  At  the  hymns,  the  men 
had  their  first  chance  to  study  his  face.  It 
was  drawn,  as  with  suffering.  It  was  spare, 
as  with  fasting.  It  had  a  pallor,  as  if  body 
were  growing  less,  and  spirit  more.  His  whole 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance    159 

aspect  emphasized  this  last.  His  voice  kept 
its  swift,  inspirational  quality,  but  it  was  gen 
tle,  tender,  pleading,  now.  It  had  been  kindly 
authoritative  before,  but  seldom  tender.  A 
look,  too,  was  in  his  face  which  was  never 
there  before,  and  which  the  men  could  not 
well  make  out. 

"  Didna  ye  mind,"  said  Angus  McPherson, 
after  the  service,  "  that  something  will  have 
been  laid  upon  Duncan,  and  that  he  will  have 
borne  it,  as  in  atonement,  into  the  Presence 
Chamber  ?  " 

Whatever  it  was,  the  men  knew  that  they 
still  had  the  same  old,  true,  intrepid,  inspiring 
Duncan  as  of  yore,  together  with  a  new,  and 
even  mightier  and  more  winsome  Duncan, 
though  in  what  respects  they  could  not  as  yet 
divine.  Their  hearts,  however,  now  went  out 
to  him  as  never  before.  They  would  have 
died  for  him.  They  bordered  on  worshiping 
him. 

"  I  propose  making  you  two  short  talks,  this 
morning,"  says  Duncan;  "and,  for  the  first, 
if  I  were  taking  a  text,  it  would  be  the  words 
in  a  part  of  James  5:  16:  'Confess  your 
faults  one  to  another.' 


160          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  You  remember  how  things  were  when  this 
mine  began.  We  were  gathering,  from  every 
where,  the  nucleus  of  our  own  force.  Con 
tractors  were  also  here,  some  erecting  build 
ings  ;  others  setting  up  machinery ;  others 
grading.  You  remember  the  great  immo 
rality.  At  that  stage,  on  my  advice,  the 
management  did  not  insist  even  on  the  sus 
pension  of  Sunday  labor.  While  it  had  the 
authority  to  do  so,  to  exercise  that  authority 
would  have  been  like  speaking  in  an  unknown 
tongue ;  and,  by  some,  would  have  been 
deemed  an  unwarrantable  invasion  of  private 
rights.  Probably,  too,  God  would  be  better 
pleased  with  those  crews  working  than  spend 
ing  the  day  as  they  would  have  spent  it  if 
idle. 

"But  you  recall  the  company's  order  the 
first  week  that  we  were  by  ourselves :  That 
no  labor  should  be  performed  at  the  works  on 
Sunday,  except  the  very  little  that  was  abso 
lutely  necessary ;  that  the  pay  should  be  the 
same  for  six  days  as  for  seven ;  that  the  few 
men  required  for  the  necessary  Sunday  work 
should  not  do  such  work  continuously,  but 
alternately  with  others,  either  by  weeks  or  by 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     161 

months ;  and  that  every  man  working  on  Sun 
day,  should  have  Saturday  free  in  exchange. 
You  remember,  too,  the  memorandum  that 
went  with  this  order,  to  the  effect,  that  the 
company  desired  to  interfere  with  no  man's 
conscience  about  Sabbath  keeping;  that  it 
took  no  stand  for  ultra  Sabbath  observance; 
and  that  it  simply  requested,  in  view  of  the 
considerate  course  outlined  in  the  order,  and 
out  of  regard,  also,  for  the  religious  signifi 
cance  of  the  day,  that  there  be  on  Sunday  a 
reasonable  quiet  on  the  lands  of  the  company, 
and  that  games  involving  groups  of  people  be 
omitted.  To  our  surprise,  in  the  then  moral 
state  of  the  camp,  the  men  met  us  more  than 
half  way ;  and  our  quiet  Sundays  ever  since 
have  been  to  us  an  earnest  of  the  vast  moral 
possibilities  of  our  force, — an  earnest,  I  am 
glad  to  say,  which  has  been  steadily  ma 
terializing  in  practical  directions  more  and 
more.  The  management,  I  may  add, — as  a 
testimony  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Fourth  Com 
mandment, — believes,  as  a  mere  matter  of 
pecuniary  advantage,  that  it  has  been  a  great 
gainer  by  this  course,  not  to  speak  of  several 

higher  considerations. 
ii 


162          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"So  far,  so  good.  The  management  felt, 
however,  that  the  matter  of  religious  services 
belonged  with  the  men.  What  Mr.  Hope  has 
said  this  morning  indicates  his  sense  that 
autonomy  should  be  yours  as  regards  them. 
To-day's  and  this  week's  services  are,  indeed, 
called  by  a  member  of  the  management.  The 
reason  for  this  will  appear  in  a  moment.  After 
this  week,  however,  all  will  be  in  your  hands. 
At  the  Wednesday  night  meeting — and  it  es 
caped  me  to  say  so  in  giving  the  notice  of  it — 
you  will  be  asked  your  wish  about  religious 
services  in  the  future ;  and,  if  you  so  desire, 
will  have  opportunity  to  appoint  a  provisional 
committee  to  act  for  you  in  such  matters, — 
always,  in  that  case,  be  it  said,  with  the  com 
mittee  responsible  to  you,  and  to  you  only, 
expect  as  it  is  responsible  to  God. 

"But  regarding  religious  services, — to  be 
undertaken  on  the  initiative  of  Christian  men, 
among  you  and  in  the  management  (not,  in 
the  latter  case,  however,  as  managers,  but  as 
individual  Christians), — I  have  steadily  ad 
vised  against  holding  them;  and  my  opposition 
has  been  the  cause  why,  except  at  funerals, 
there  has  never  been,  until  to-day,  a  religious 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     163 

service  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine.  I  may  add, 
that  the  fact  that  I  have  been  the  cause,  has 
been  the  reason  why,  as  a  concrete  way  of 
confessing  what  I  deem  to  have  been  my 
grave  error,  I  have  myself  announced  to-day's 
and  this  week's  services,  instead  of  merely 
withdrawing  my  opposition,  and  leaving  the 
initiative  to  those  desirous  of  starting  services. 

"  The  grounds  of  my  opposition  were  two  : 
first,  that,  in  the  immoral  conditions  when  we 
began,  the  effect  of  such  services  would  be, 
almost  inevitably,  to  draw  lines  among  us,  in 
the  '  holier  than  thou '  sense,  though  not  with 
that  intention ;  whereas  we  needed,  the 
rather,  to  fraternize,  grow  together,  and  let 
light,  by  its-  own  mysterious  power,  drive  out 
darkness.  I  believe  that  this  position  was 
sound,  both  before  the  contractors  left,  and 
for  a  considerable  time  afterwards.  But  for  a 
long  period  now, — nearly  two  years,  I  should 
say, — our  men  have  maintained  a  moral  tone 
so  excellent,  and  have  so  well  understood  one 
another,  that  this  position  has  had  neither 
force  nor  applicability. 

"  The  second  ground  of  my  opposition  has 
been  a  certain  passion  for  reality,  for  being 


164          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

rather  than  seeming,  for  the  kingdom  within, 
as  our  Saviour  said,  rather  than  for  the  king 
dom  coming  with  observation.  This  principle, 
in  itself,  is,  of  course,  correct.  It  had  special 
applicability  when  there  were  here  a  large 
number  of  men  prejudiced  against  religion. 
To  live  Christianity  rather  than  to  proclaim 
it,  was,  under  such  circumstances  and  for  the 
time,  as  I  think,  the  wise  course.  But  that 
condition  has  long  ceased. 

"  To  have  pressed  on,  then,  in  adhesion  to 
this  principle  of  silent  witnessing  for  Christ, 
when  the  reason  for  silence  no  longer  existed  ; 
and  to  have  neglected  its  associated  principle 
of  public  worship,  of  gospel  proclamation,  and 
of  uniting  and  organizing  for  Christian  fellow 
ship,  growth  and  service, — has  been  contrary 
to  the  Bible,  to  Christ's  precept  and  example, 
to  common  sense,  and  to  the  longings  of  the 
human  heart.  Think,  for  instance,  of  our  joy 
this  day  1  Think  how,  for  nearly  two  years, 
there  has  been  no  sufficient  reason  why  we 
should  not  have  had  the  like  joy  week  by 
week!  Think  of  the  men  who,  during  this 
period,  have  died, — in  each  instance,  by  God's 
mercy,  such,  indeed,  in  character,  that  their 


A  Righteous  Man's  Repentance     165 

faces  were  heavenward, — who  went  up  into  a 
fellowship  of  the  skies,  which  they  had  never 
known  through  its  counterpart  on  earth ;  and 
this  for  the  sole  reason  that  Duncan  McLeod, 
who  had  studied  for  the  ministry  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  blocked  the  way  !  " 

Duncan's  voice  had  been  tremulous  for  sev 
eral  sentences.  Here  he  hid  his  face  in  his 
hands,  and  bowed  it  upon  the  desk.  You 
could  feel  the  convulsive  shaking  of  his  frame. 
Then,  with  a  mighty  effort,  he  commanded 
himself,  dashed  away  the  tears,  and  said  : 

"  Men,  I  ask  your  forgiveness.  Now  that  I 
have  confessed  this  sin  as  publicly  as  it  has 
been  committed,  and  have  forsaken  it,  I  feel 
that  God  forgives  it." 

Then  the  men  knew  why  the  legend  on  the 
backs  of  the  books,  and  on  the  organ,  read : 

FROM  A  FEIEND— HUMBLY  MAKING  AMENDS. 


PENTECOST   AGAIN 


O  study  the  faces  of  the  men 
during  the  progress  of  this, 
the  first  general  religious 
LJ  service  at  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine,  was  wonderful.  First, 
there  had  been  the  joy  of 
religious  fellowship  and 
united  worship,  so  long 
hungered  for,  though  the 
hunger  in  many  instances  had  not  been  real 
ized  as  such.  Next,  there  had  come  the  glad 
surprise  contained  in  the  authentic  announce 
ment  that  they  had  among  them,  in  effect,  a 
minister  amply  prepared  for  his  work,  loved 
and  admired  by  everybody,  and  a  man  after 
their  own  hearts.  Thirdly,  within  the  com 
pass  of  two  brief  sentences,  John  Hope  had 
laid  the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  industrial- 
economic  situation,  and  of  the  religious  situa 
tion  as  well ;  and  this,  not  as  theory,  but  as  a 

1 66 


Pentecost  Again  167 

preliminary  announcement  of  the  definite  bet 
terment,  materially  at  least,  of  every  employee 
of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  who  should  have 
proved  himself  a  "  faithful  worker."  To  crown 
all,  Duncan  McLeod's  lucid  resume  of  the  relig 
ious  history  of  the  mine,  and  his  clear  state 
ment  of  the  principles  which  had  wrought 
within  that  history,  had  been  to  the  men  little 
short  of  an  apocalypse.  At  this  point  it  was 
with  them  as  when  the  hearers  of  Demos 
thenes  were  ready  to  cry,  "  Let  us  rise  and  go 
against  Philip." 

But  when  Duncan's  voice  grew  low ;  when 
he  confessed  his  sin  against  them,  and  against 
God ;  and  when,  amidst  unmistakable  signs  of 
the  deepest  contrition,  he  craved  their  forgive 
ness, — lips  quivered,  tears  streamed  down  faces, 
hearts  were  being  searched  by  God's  Spirit, 
and  a  crisis  drew  on.  Well  did  Duncan 
meet  it. 

"We  must  be  wise  about  our  emotions, 
yours  and  mine,"  he  said.  "When  God's 
Spirit  takes  hold  on  us  we  must  show  our 
reverence  for  his  workings  by  being  thorough. 
I  read  in  your  faces  that  you  forgive  me, 
and  "— 


i68          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"Amen!"  "Amen!"  "We  do  indeed,  a 
thousand  times  over !  "  "  God  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Leod  forgive  us,  the  rather ! " — and  like  ejacu 
lations  here  filled  the  house. 

"I  thank  you  all,"  continued  Duncan,  si 
lencing  the  men  by  a  wave  of  his  hand ;  "  and 
I  feel  in  my  heart  that  God,  too,  forgives  me, 
even  as  the  Psalmist  sublimely  puts  it, — 

1  As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 
So  far  hath  he  removed  our  transgressions  from  us.' 

But  let  us  fix  our  thoughts,  which  have  now 
become  so  tender,  on  a  saying  of  Jesus,  in  the 
hope  that  the  duty  it  makes  plain  may  give 
our  emotions  worthy  exercise,  and  so  may, 
like  a  dynamo,  at  once  conserve  them,  and 
turn  them  into  power." 

Faces  lifted  and  lighted  as  he  spoke.  Tears 
were  dashed  away.  All  were  expectant. 

"  In  Kevolation  3 : 20,  a  part  of  the  verse," 
he  said,  "are  these  words  of  the  Saviour: 
'Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and  knock.' 
Since  we  are  friends  here  together,  and  for 
the  sake  of  making  my  point  clearer,  let  me 
bring  you  to  these  words  out  of  personal  ex 
perience. 


Pentecost  Again  169 

"  I  have  been  a  Christian  from  a  child. 
Christ  was  to  me,  at  first,  he  that  saved  me 
from  the  penalty  of  my  sins,  and,  incidentally, 
though  indispensably,  from  their  power.  The 
realization  of  this  changed  my  life.  I  was 
grateful  to  him,  and  tried  to  do  as  he  would 
wish. 

"  When  a  university  student  I  came  under 
the  power  of  the  Chris tliest  life  I  ever  knew.. 
In  that  person's  living,  and,  as  I  thought,  in 
his  teaching, — though  I  doubt  that  now, — I 
got  a  new  doctrine  of  Christ.  According  to 
that  doctrine,  Christ,  though  divine,  was  the 
surpassingly  manly,  noble,  heroic  person,  going 
about  doing  good.  As  such,  though  he  did 
much  besides,  he  was  preeminently  the  Leader 
and  Saviour  of  men.  Thenceforth  I  gave  my 
self  to  walking,  so  far  as  I  might,  in  his  steps, 
and  to  emulating  his  great  life.  To  do,  to 
serve,  were,  with  me,  everything. 

"  These  two  views  of  Christ,  the  one  follow 
ing  upon  the  other,  have  ruled  my  life  until  very 
lately.  One  of  these  views  is  expiatory ;  the 
other  is  exemplary  and  inspirational.  There 
is  much  Scripture  for  both  of  them,  and  large 
truth  at  bottom  of  both  of  them ;  though  they 


170          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

are  both  frequently  misstated  and  miscon 
ceived. 

"  Within  a  short  time  God  has  laid  hold  on 
me  in  ways  dark  and  strange.  How,  I  shall 
not  tell  you.  Even  Mr.  Hope  does  not  know, 
and  probably  never  will.  The  way  God  laid 
hold  on  me  disclosed  to  me,  besides  yawning 
chasms  of  evil  within  myself,  a  yet  larger 
truth  about  Christ,  to  which  I  had  been 
strangely  blind;  and  I  thank  him  for  rough 
usage,  like  clay  on  the  blind  man's  eyes,  if 
only  I  may  see  Jesus,  and  not  merely  some 
things  about  Jesus,  as  heretofore.  It  is  only 
just  that  I  should  add  that  Mr.  Hope,  by  his 
faithful  testimony,  and  gentle,  Christly  living, 
has  been  of  the  greatest  help  in  bringing  me 
to  this  changed  view. 

"  Jesus,  as  I  now  apprehend  him,  is,  indeed, 
a  Saviour  from  the  guilt  and  power  of  sin ;  not 
outwardly  and  formally,  however,  but  vitally 
and  by  spiritual  forces.  He  is  also  exemplary 
and  inspirational,  beyond  any  possibility  of 
measuring.  But  these,  it  is  growing  clearer 
and  clearer  to  me,  are  only  some  of  the 
many  things  he  does  for  us,  though  eminent 
among  them ;  whereas  the  great  and  central 


Pentecost  Again  171 

thing  he  does  for  us  is  the  personal  gift  of 
himself. 

"  Of  Christ  as  thus  a  personal  and  present 
and  living  Saviour,  the  New  Testament  is  full. 
He  did  great  things  for  men,  but  himself  was 
far  greater.  And  is  there  not  the  profoundest 
reason  in  this  great  reality  ? 

"Perhaps  your  mother  did  everything  for 
you;  mine  did  for  me.  But  were  any  or  all 
of  the  things  she  did  for  you,  for  one  moment 
to  be  compared  with  what  she  was  to  you  ? 
They  were  not,  in  my  home. 

"  Which,  too,  is  the  greater,  the  gift,  or  the 
person  back  of  the  gift  ?  Is  not  the  gift  bare, 
as  Lowell  says,  without  the  giver  ? 

"  What,  moreover,  makes  the  world  go,  life 
go,  things  go  ?  Forces,  you  say.  Yes.  But 
do  you  know  any  supreme  force  that  is  not 
more  than  a  force,  that  is  not  personal  ? 

"  In  your  country,  in  the  Civil  War,  there  was 
a  slouched  hat  at  Winchester  on  a  day,  that 
was  better  than  a  whole  army  corps,  because 
Sheridan  was  under  it.  In  my  country  there 
would  not  have  been  any  Bannockburn  if 
there  had  not  been  a  Bruce. 

"Such  is   the  New  Testament  thought  of 


172  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Christ.  Careful  and  troubled  about  many 
things  is  man ;  but  one  thing  is  needful — to 
sit  at  his  feet.  Worlds  of  things  he  does  for 
man ;  the  supreme  thing  he  does,  including 
and  transcending  all  the  others,  is  that  he 
gives  himself  to  man  ;  to  you,  to  me,  to  every 
one. 

"  And  this  is  what  the  words  in  the  Kevela- 
tion  tell  us.  He  stands  at  the  door  and 
knocks.  He  wants  to  come  in.  If  we  open  the 
door,  he  will  enter,  and  will  sup  with  us,  and 
be  an  ever-present,  familiar  guest. 

"  Now  I  could  go  through  the  floor,  or  the 
earth,  for  shame  of  it,  but  I  have  to  confess 
that  I  never  let  him  in,  in  any  such  sense  as  he 
means,  until  very  recently.  Being  grateful  and 
trying  to  do  as  he  would  wish  is  not  letting 
him  in.  To  do,  to  serve,  are  not  letting  him 
in.  I  did  similar  things  for  my  mother ;  had  I 
stopped  there  I  had  not  let  her  in.  My  mother 
and  I  had  our  trysts,  the  rather ;  we  dwelt  in 
each  other's  hearts,  and  always  shall.  Nor  are 
the  results  of  the  contrary  course  satisfactory. 
You  knew  me  before.  You  liked  me,  as  I  did 
you.  But  I  was  not  simple,  and  Christlike, 
and  tenderly  loving.  I  let  a  notion  of  mine, 


Pentecost  Again  173 

for  example,  keep  you  out  of  such  a  service  as 
this  that  we  are  having  here  to-day,  for  nearly 
two  years  beyond  the  time  when  there  was 
any  good  reason  for  doing  so.  Had  Christ 
been  let  in,  such  a  thing  would  have  been 
impossible,  even  as  it  has  been  impossible 
since  I  let  him  in.  I  was  doing  a  lot  of 
things, — good  enough  things,  too, — but  I  was 
keeping  the  latch-string  inside. 

"  Men,  will  you  do  that  ?  Do  you  not  see 
him  there,  with  the  pierced  hands,  knocking, 
knocking  ?  Will  you  bar  the  door  to  such  a 
one? 

"  This  is  all  I  have  to  say  at  this  time,  ex 
cept  to  extend  some  invitations,  namely : 

"  Between  three  and  six,  this  afternoon,  at 
your  convenience, — and  not  all  at  one  time, 
please, — in  this  room,  Mr.  Campbell  will  be 
glad  to  have  any  meet  him,  who  have  given 
their  hearts  to  Jesus,  and  who  are  willing  to 
unite,  in  some  simple  way,  for  Christian  fel 
lowship,  growth  and  service. 

"At  four  o'clock,  at  the  company's  office, 
Mr.  Hope  will  be  glad  to  meet  any,  not  Chris 
tians,  who  would  like  to  become  such. 

"At  five  o'clock,  in  the  assayers'  room,  I 


174          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

shall  be  glad  to  meet  any,  not  Christians,  nor 
particularly   desirous    to    become  such,   who 
would  like,  nevertheless,  man-fashion,  to  talk 
about  the  Christian  life. 
"  Shall  we  sing, — 

1  Behold,  a  stranger  at  the  door  ! '  — 

and,  while  still  standing,  be  dismissed  with  a 
word  of  prayer  ?  It  will  then  still  lack  several 
minutes  of  eleven  forty -five,  when  Mr.  Hope 
will  lead  the  Bible  study  with  those  who  care 
to  stay.  Will  not  such  open  the  windows  in 
order  to  change  the  air,  and  rest  themselves 
by  moving  about  a  little,  before  Mr.  Hope  calls 
them  to  order  ?  " 

The  singing,  and  Duncan's  three  or  four  sen 
tences  of  prayer  in  closing,  were,  if  possible, 
more  moving  than  anything  that  had  gone  be 
fore. 

The  windows  were  at  once  thrown  up,  and, 
very  silently,  the  men,  as  Duncan  had  sug 
gested,  moved  about  by  way  of  changing  posi 
tion  ;  but  when,  on  the  minute,  the  windows 
were  closed,  and  John  Hope  came  forward,  not 
a  man  had  left. 

He  asked  them  to  find  in  their  Bibles,  at 


Pentecost  Again  175 

John  1:35-49,  what  he  called  "The  Begin 
nings  of  the  Gospel,"  and  soon  had  the  men 
freely  reading  verses,  answering  questions,  and 
offering  pointed  suggestions  and  inquiries.  He 
was  a  born  teacher.  It  was  his  inheritance 
from  that  weaver-scholar,  William  Hope. 
Soon,  just  as  he  intended,  the  men  were  at  the 
fore,  and  he  in  the  background ;  but,  with 
brilliant  bits  of  word-painting  now  and  then, 
and  with  skilful  guidance  of  the  discussion, 
he  got  in  his  work  marvelously  nevertheless. 

"  What,  friends,"  John  began  by  asking,  "  is 
the  metal  of  the  gospel  ?  Should  not  the  first 
strike  show?  Assayed,  should  it  not  afford 
sure  indications  ?  You  are  to  be  the  assay ers 
this  morning." 

Thereupon  he  drew  out  of  them,  how  An 
drew,  John,  Simon,  probably  James,  Philip  and 
Nathanael,  were  won :  not  by  words,  theories, 
programs,  but  by  "Come  and  see,"  "Fol 
low  me  " ;  and  by  that  mighty  loadstone  which 
Jesus,  on  being  so  tested,  proved  himself  to  be. 
His  seeing  the  rock  in  sand-like  Simon,  and  the 
Israelite  indeed  in  bitterly  prejudiced  Nathan- 
ael,  came  out  in  splendor. 

"We  infer,  then,"  John  summarized,  "as 


176          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  gold  of  this  assay  of  yours,  that  Jesus  is 
the  one  person  in  the  world  who  wholly  sees 
the  best  in  us ;  who  sees  it  all  the  time ;  who 
is  not  blind  to  our  faults  (how,  for  example,  he 
scored  Simon,  upon  occasion !),  but  who  takes 
lavish  stock  in  our  excellences ;  who,  in  short, 
is  the  discoverer  of  men." 

You  should  have  seen  the  men  look  at 
one  another,  and  their  faces  kindle.  "Just 
as  Mr.  McLeod  did  b'  me ! "  cried  Patrick 
Sullivan. 

When,  near  the  close,  they  had  done  with 
the  fig-tree,  and  with  NathanaePs  prejudice 
and  unbelief  turned  to  enthusiastic  faith  by 
the  fact  that  Jesus  had  seen  him  even  in  that 
crisis, — "  Bigger  and  better  buttons l  yet," 
John  said;  "Jesus  present  in  every  darkest 
hour;  Jesus  passing  with  us,  undismayed, 
through  our  gloomiest  doubt ;  Jesus  the  chief 
mourner  at  every  funeral ;  Jesus  proving  him 
self  the  Friend  in  need ;  Jesus,  on  such  authen 
tication,  the  Son  of  God  and  King  of  life. 
May  we  not  well,  then,  center  our  lives  at  him, 
well  respond  with  all  our  souls  to  these  his  pri- 

1  The  smaller  or  larger  globules  of  gold  or  silver  that  test 
assays  yield,  are,  in  mining  parlance,  "buttons." 


Pentecost  Again  177 

mary  and  all-inclusive  invitations,  <  Come  and 
see,' and 'Follow  me'?" 

Then,  by  a  transition  scarcely  perceptible, 
he  began  talking  with  Jesus,  in  the  most  sim 
ple  fashion,  about  himself  and  all  there  pres 
ent,  and  about  how  they,  too,  each  wanted  to 
come,  to  see,  to  follow,  to  be  discovered,  to 
have  a  living,  present  Saviour, — words  of  sym 
pathetic,  winged,  moving  prayer. 

"  Can't  he  question  ?  "  "  How  he  draws 
you  out !  "  "  Never  saw  the  apostles  alive  be 
fore  !  "  "  What  a  teacher ! "  "  May  God  an 
swer  that  prayer  in  my  life ! " — and  the  like, 
were  the  ejaculations,  when,  at  twelve-thirty, 
to  the  second,  John  Hope  said,  "  Amen,"  and 
dismissed  them.  He  had  taken  the  men  by 
storm.  No  one  was  more  surprised  and  proud 
than  Duncan.  He  wrung  both  of  John's 
hands,  and  exclaimed :  "  Archibald  Geikie 
never  taught  more  effectively  !  " 

Of  the  one  hundred  and  seventy-seven  men 
then  on  the  works,  Douglas  Campbell's  private 
list  showed  ninety -six  Christians;  but  eleven 
of  these  were  so  conservative  and  reticent  that 
he  did  not  expect  them  to  come  to  him.  These 
men  all  came,  however,  and  the  eighty-five  he 

12 


178          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

had  counted  on,  and  nine  more  who,  they  said, 
had  unlatched  the  door  because  of  Duncan 
McLeod's  plea,  and  of  John  Hope's  assay. 
Douglas  spent  some  time  with  each  of  these 
nine.  "  Genuine  cases,"  he  reported  to  Dun 
can  and  John.  Thus  one  hundred  and  five 
stood  "  willing  to  unite,  in  some  simple  way, 
for  Christian  fellowship,  growth  and  service." 

At  four  o'clock,  twenty -nine,  not  Christians, 
but  wanting  to  be,  met  John;  and  at  five, 
seventeen,  not  Christians,  nor  much  caring  to 
be,  met  Duncan,  "  man-fashion,  to  talk  about 
the  Christian  life."  At  the  evening  service,  of 
John's  twenty-nine,  twenty-one ;  and  of  Dun 
can's  seventeen,  nine, — testified  that  they  had 
come,  seen,  and  would  follow.  These  all  gave 
their  names  to  Douglas  Campbell,  who  person 
ally  dealt  with  and  approved  each, — it  took 
him  until  the  midnight  shift  began  to  do  it, — 
so  that  he  had  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  on 
the  provisional  roll  of  that  Christian  band 
which  was  to  count  for  so  much  at  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine  in  the  days  to  come. 

The  evening  service  was  a  Pentecost.  On 
Wednesday  night  this  was  repeated.  By  this 
time  eleven  more  were  added  to  Douglas 


Pentecost  Again  179 

Campbell's  list,  one  hundred  and  forty-six  in 
all,  leaving  but  thirty-one  persons  at  the  mine 
not  thus  enrolled.  It  was  voted  to  hold  relig 
ious  services  regularly  thenceforth,  and  a  pro 
visional  committee,  with  power  to  make  ar 
rangements,  was  chosen,  consisting  of  Messrs. 
Campbell,  McDuff,  Sullivan,  McPherson,  and 
— against  his  stout  protest — McLeod.  John 
Hope  was  also  chosen,  but  declined  to  serve 
because  he  had  frequently,  for  considerable 
intervals,  to  be  in  New  York. 
And  better  things  than  these  were  yet  to  be. 


XI 


BISHOP    GKEATHEART   ORDAINS   UNCAKONIC- 
ALLY 


ATKICK  SULLIYAIST, 
a  communicant  of  the 
Church  of  Kome,  chosen 
a  member  of  the  Provi 
sional  Committee  of  the 
*  Union  for  Christian 
Fellowship,  Growth  and 
Service'  at  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine ! " 

Precisely,  my  friend ;  but  possess  your  soul 
in  patience  long  enough  to  learn  how  it  came 
about. 

On  the  Sunday  of  the  first  public  service, 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  swallowed  his  dinner, 
Sullivan  went  to  Duncan  McLeod. 
"  I  'm  a  Catholic,"  said  Sullivan. 
"  I  would  not  have  you  otherwise,"  rejoined 
Duncan. 

180 


Bishop  Greatheart  Ordains         181 

"  Nor  I,  ye,"  continued  Sullivan.  "  Can  I  be 
o'  the  meetin'  ?  " 

"Yes,  as  I  think,"  answered  Duncan.  "I 
know  devout  Catholics, — some  of  them  are 
among  my  best  friends, — who,  upon  occasion, 
meet  with  Protestants  where  prayer  is  offered, 
and  for  practical  work;  and  I  know  Protes 
tants  who  so  meet  with  Catholics ;  in  fact,  I 
myself  am  one  of  them.  That  is  just  the  situ 
ation  here." 

"  I  will  do  it,"  Sullivan  went  on.  "  Ye  '11 
tell  nobody,  Mr.  McLeod,  but  I  knows  a  praste 
in  Colorado, — and  sure  there 's  no  better  praste 
than  he, — who  is  to  that  ex  tint  a  Christian, 
that,  as  I  Jm  a-thinkin',  he  'd  give  me  the  like 
advice  himsilf.  Leastways,  I'll  shtake  me 
soul  that  he  '11  confess  and  absolve  me.  Will 
ye  shake  hands  wid  me  on  it,  Mr.  McLeod  ?  " 

"  With  the  proviso,  Patrick,  that  when  I  am 
among  Catholics  I  may  do,  as  nearly  as  I  can, 
the  same  thing." 

"  Sure,  sir.  I  niver  sot  me  eyes  on  so  good 
a  Catholic  as  ye,  barrin'  the  mass;  ye  con 
fessed  and  got  absolution  this  very  morning" 
— and  they  shook  until,  Sunday  though  it 
was,  it  became  almost  an  athletic  contest 


182  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

which  of  them  could  squeeze  until  the  other 
cried,  "  Enough  !  " 

"  God  bless  you,  Patrick !  "  said  Duncan ; 
"you  are  my  joy  and  crown." 

"And,  Mr.  McLeod,"  answered  Sullivan, 
"  b'  the  Lord's  grace,  and  the  Holy  Mother's, 
ye  are  me  saviour,"  and,  with  his  rough  hand 
dashing  away  a  tear,  he  made  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  and  was  gone. 

The  nominating  committee  insisted  on  pre 
senting  his  name  for  the  provisional  com 
mittee;  it  was  received  with  applause;  no 
"  ayes "  were  so  emphatic  when  the  names 
were  voted  on  separately;  and  Patrick  Sulli 
van  proved  second  in  value  to  almost  no 
member,  either  of  the  provisional  committee, 
or  of  the  Union  for  Christian  Fellowship, 
Growth  and  Service  that  followed. 

But  he  was  rarely  without  his  joke. 
"  "Would  ye  ha'  thought  it,"  he  would  exclaim, 
"  that  he  that  led  the  mutiny  would  ha'  been 
created  a  cardinal  ?  Me  red  hat  I  keeps  under 
me  bed  though,  lest,  wearin'  it,  and  some  day 
forgettin',  I  misbeseem  it,  and  so  make  light 
o'  the  Holy  Father's  app'intment." 

Duncan  was  away  the  next  Sunday.     John 


Bishop  Greatheart  Ordains         183 

took  the  service.  The  third  Sunday  Duncan 
was  back.  There  were  water,  bread  and  the 
cup  on  the  table  before  the  platform.  Dun 
can  spoke  on  the  meanings  of  baptism  and  of 
the  communion.  He  did  this  so  simply,  with 
such  apt  illustration,  so  tenderly,  and  in  such 
a  direct  and  practical  way,  that  even  mature 
Christians,  like  Douglas  Campbell,  said  that 
the  sacraments  never  meant  so  much  to  them 
before.  The  men  got  him  to  write  out  the 
substance  of  what  he  said,  and  had  it  printed 
as  part  of  a  manual  which  they  soon  issued 
for  the  use  of  their  Union.  "Why  I  ad 
minister  these  sacraments,"  Duncan  said,  "I 
will  make  clear  on  Wednesday  evening." 
Then  he  put  the  water  of  baptism  on  the  fore 
heads  of  forty-seven  men.  After  that  he 
invited  all  who  loved  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to 
commune,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  did 
so.  He  broke  the  bread,  poured  the  wine, 
blessed  both,  and  gave  them  to  the  provisional 
committee,  who,  the  cardinal  included,  dis 
tributed  them  to  the  congregation.  Then 
Duncan  served  the  provisional  committee,  and 
its  son  of  Eome  partook  "in  both  kinds" 
for  the  first  time.  It  was  a  day  of  heaven, 


184          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

beyond  even   the  first  Sunday  of  their  ser 
vices. 

Wednesday  night  Duncan  made  this  speech : 
"  There  are,"  he  said,  "  many  Protestant 
denominations ;  so  many  that  we  ought  not 
to  start  another  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 
Though  so  many,  they  are  of  but  three  types, 
Episcopal,  ruled  by  bishops;  Presbyterial, 
ruled  by  leading  men,  elders ;  and  Congrega 
tional,  ruled  by  the  congregation.  Politically 
speaking,  monarchy,  aristocracy,  democracy, 
are,  respectively,  their  key  words.  Forget 
not,  however,  that  the  true  monarch  is  serv 
ant  of  all;  and  that  aristocracy  means  the 
'rule  of  the  best/  Each  type  claims  the 
authority  of  the  New  Testament ;  and  rightly, 
for  they  all  commingle  there.  The  ultimate 
church  will  not  be  at  some  one  of  these  three 
sides  of  the  field,  but  at  its  center,  utilizing  to 
the  full  all  of  these  divinely  suggested  forces 
in  church  life. 

"  Meantime,  each  man  chooses  his  type.  I, 
for  example,  choose  the  Presbyterial,  with  its 
elders  and  general  assembly ;  and  Mr.  Sullivan 
— God  bless  him ! — chooses  the  Episcopal,  with 
its  bishops,  archbishops  and  supreme  pontiff. 


Bishop  Greatheart  Ordains         185 

"  Probably  we  could  all  coine  together  with 
the  least  sacrifice  of  individual  convictions, 
and  most  conveniently,  in  some  Congregational 
way, — which,  in  some  respects,  is  what  we  are 
doing.  But  that,  if  carried  out  fully,  would 
cause  men  of  all  three  types  to  become  make 
weights  for  one  of  them;  would  involve,  in 
short,  denominationalism,  councils,  and  the 
rest, — conditions  not  conducive,  as  I  am  think 
ing,  and  as  I  know  many  of  you  think,  to  the 
straight,  simple  work  we  want  to  do  here  for 
Christ.  Shall  we  not  keep  even  nearer  than 
that  to  the  New  Testament?  Shall  we  not 
utilize  all  the  forces  it  suggests :  the  con 
gregation  governing;  the  provisional  and 
other  committees,  as  if  they  were  elders, 
governing;  and  your  minister,  whoever  he 
may  be,  with  a  sort  of  bishop's  authority 
lodged  in  him,  also  governing,  so  long,  that 
is  to  say,  as,  in  wisdom  and  character,  he  shall 
deserve  to  do  so  ? 

"  That  was  the  way  it  looked  to  me ;  and,  as 
time  was  precious,  and  as,  also,  what  could  be 
done  was  problematical,  I  went,  on  my  own 
responsibility,  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  partly, 
indeed,  on  business  for  the  mine,  but,  to  be 


l86          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

frank,  mainly  on  Christ's  business.  Since  I  am 
Presbyterian,  and  our  union  is  acting  Congre- 
gationally,  it  seemed  the  fair  thing  to  approach 
an  eminent  bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church.  That  polity,  it  should  be  added,  is 
much  simpler  in  its  workings  in  America  than 
over  sea,  and  also  has  within  it,  though  not 
much  developed,  besides  its  conspicuous  mon 
archical  principle,  the  aristocratic  and  the 
democratic  principles  also. 

"I  sketched  to  the  bishop  our  situation; 
also,  my  notion  of  church  polity  at  the 
present  time.  It  is  that  of  many  eminent 
Christian  thinkers,  and  is  likely  to  be  accepted 
more  and  more.  I  told  him  that  I  was  no 
Episcopalian,  nor  ever  meant  to  be,  in  present 
conditions ;  though  I  added  that  I  wished 
Episcopacy  would  so  build  out  its  undeveloped 
sides,  that  I,  with  all  Protestants,  might  be 
included  in  it.  I  went  so  far,  even,  as  to  say 
that  I  believed  any  true  Christian,  on  occasion, 
had,  intrinsically,  the  right  to  administer  the 
water  of  baptism  and  the  bread  and  cup  of  the 
communion;  but  that,  while  so  viewing  the 
case,  we  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  were  not 
anarchists  in  Christ's  Church,  but  wished  to 


Bishop  Greatheart  Ordains         187 

respect  all  suitable  usages  and  precedents.  I 
pointed  out  how  the  personal  authority  of 
Episcopacy,  and  its  largely  latent  but  mightily 
potential  capacity  on  those  two  other  sides  of 
authority  which  I  have  mentioned,  caused  it, 
in  certain  respects,  to  be  a  partial  asylum  for 
us,  as  nothing  else  could  be,  in  the  peculiar 
conditions  in  which  we  found  ourselves.  '  In 
fact,'  I  said,  for  our  talk  was  becoming  solemn, 
and  required  enlivening,  '  Bishop  Greatheart,  I 
desire,  from  you,  admission  to  the  Apostolic 
Succession.'  The  bishop  smiled,  said,  'Corne 
at  ten  to-morrow  morning,'  and,  as  he  bade 
me  '  Good-afternoon,'  brushed  away  a  tear. 

"The  next  day,  when  I  went  to  him,  he 
said :  '  This  is  what  I  have  prayed  for,  and 
longed  for,  many  a  year,  but  have  not  had  the 
faith  that  I  should  live  to  see.  Many  are  our 
faults  and  grievous ;  but,  at  least  potentially, 
we  have  that  which  no  other  English-speaking 
Protestant  body  has  for  the  varied  needs  of 
the  flock  of  Christ.  Oh,  that  we  might  build 
out,  as  you  say !  And  oh,  too,  that  the  com 
munions  which  you,  in  a  way,  represent,  might 
see  their  needs,  and  our  possibilities  for  meet 
ing  the  needs !  But  to  the  point.  What  I  am 


i88          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

about  to  do,  you  may  tell  anywhere,  using  my 
name  freely ;  for,  with  your  problem  on  hand, 
I  should  give  a  stone  for  bread  if  I  refused 
you.'  I  shall  not  spread  it  much  abroad,  how 
ever,  men  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  and  I 
hope  that  you  will  not ;  for  there  are  many 
ecclesiastical  gunners  loading  and  firing  in 
these  days.  And,  though  I  have  told  you 
how  fearless  that  brave  man  was,  I  shall  not 
even  give  his  name,  except  that  I  shall  call 
him,  as  I  have  begun  to  do  with  you,  Bishop 
Greatheart.  You  might  almost  identify  him 
by  that  appellation,  such  are  his  character 
and  fame. 

"'  Duncan  McLeod,'  Dr.  Greatheart  con 
tinued,  '  by  what  authority  soever  resides  in  me 
as  a  bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  I  do  now,' — 
and  he  laid  his  hands  on  my  head, — "  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  authorize  you  to  administer 
the  sacraments,  to  preach  the  Word,  and  to 
shepherd  the  flock  scattered  abroad  on  the 
mountains  far  away,  not  only  those  of  granite 
and  porphyry,  but  those  of  this  world's  schism 
and  sin.  Amen.'  Thereupon,  after  a  collect 


Bishop  Greatheart  Chdains         189 

or  two,  like  an  eagle  that  has  broken  from  his 
cage,  he  soared  away  into  the  empyrean  of 
free  prayer,  as  St.  Paul  or  St.  John  might 
have  done.  When  he  finished  both  of  us  were 
profoundly  moved.  I  knew,  then,  that  I  was 
ordained.  *  Mr.  McLeod,'  he  said,  *  you  are  in 
the  Apostolic  Succession,  so  as  you  prove 
worthy  of  it.  I  know  you  will.  Christ's  grace 
be  with  you  !  Good-bye.' 

"  So,  men,  not  without  some  due  regard  to 
order  and  propriety,  did  the  water,  the  bread 
and  the  cup  leave  my  hands  on  our  first 
sacramental  day.  As  I  stood  thus,  minister 
ing  in  Christ's  name,  the  vision  came  up  before 
me,  as  if  I  were  wafted  far  away,  of  Bishop 
Greatheart,  standing  on  the  steps  of  his  house, 
and  waving  me  adieu.  A  glory  was  in  his  face, 
and  seemed  an  aureole  about  his  head,  as  I 
have  often  at  sunset  seen  it  above  the  brow  of 
the  Mount  of  the  Holy  Cross.  His  words,  too, 
tremulous  with  emotion,  sounded  still  in  my 
ears,  *  You  are  in  the  Apostolic  Succession,  so 
as  you  prove  worthy  of  it.' " 


XII 

FOB  MOKE  THAN  DIVIDENDS 

(HE  remarkable  religious 
life  at  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine,  which  blossomed 
so  suddenly  into  its  sum 
mer  after  the  crisis  in 
Duncan  McLeod's  per 
sonal  religious  experience,  would  have  been 
impossible  except  for  the  long  and  efficient 
subsoil  processes  which  have  been  indicated  in 
this  history.  Its  summer,  moreover,  could  not 
have  arrived  so  swiftly,  except  for  the  mighty 
personal  hold  which  certain  very  able  men  at 
the  mine  had  long  had  on  their  fellows,  and 
except  for  the  virility  and  force  and  sagacity 
and  zeal  with  which  they  bent  their  every 
energy  toward  results. 

Large  religious   harvests  follow  much  the 
same  laws  as  large  natural  harvests.     They 
can  be  had,  or  not,  according  to  the  tillage. 
190 


For  More  Than  Dividends         191 

Try  such  living,  such  faith,  such  wisdom  and 
such  love  as  prevailed  at  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine,  anywhere,  and  see.  Men  are  naturally 
religious.  They  want  God.  Give  them  a 
God,  a  real  one,  incarnate  in  great  living  all 
about  them,  and  they  will  make  him  theirs 
too.  Gold  drives  out  inferior  coinages.  God 
supplants  all  else,  and  hallows  all  else,  if  only 
men  give  him  the  chance  to  do  so,  by  bringing 
him,  in  warm  flesh  and  blood  and  life,  to 
men. 

Furthermore,  the  large  industrial-economic 
triumphs  recorded  in  this  chapter  and  the 
next,  would  never  have  been  possible  except 
from  truly  religious  men.  You  cannot  get 
the  best  results,  even  of  a  material  sort,  ex 
cept  through  character,  and  through  skill  and 
energy  sublimated  by  character,  and  through 
character  itself  lifted  and  glorified  by  a  pres 
ent  and  living  Christ.  Only  when  he  is 
vitally  present  is  the  industrial-economic  net 
adequately  taut  and  ready  to  break  with  great 
fishes. 

It  now  becomes  our  duty  to  glance  at  the 
more  material  side  of  the  Annie  Laurie  life. 

Said  Duncan  McLeod  to  John  Hope,  in  his 


192          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

enthusiastic  way,  when  they  were  canvassing 
the  question  of  entering  mining  together: 
"  You  will  find  men,  in  such  an  enterprise,  at 
their  worst  and  best :  rough,  adventurous  char 
acters;  many  of  them  hardened  in  sin;  not 
greatly  valuing  human  life ;  isolated,  and  long 
unused  to  the  restraints  of  'more  civilized 
conditions ' ;  but  splendid  stuff  under  the  sur 
face,  like  gold  within  the  grim  mountains; 
and  virgin  soil  with  which  you  can  do  any 
thing." 

The  two  friends  had  an  inexpugnable  faith 
in  pure  goodness,  in  "grit  and  grace,"  and 
flung  themselves  on  the  situation  like  Paton 
on  the  New  Hebrides, — indeed,  as  we  have 
seen,  after  a  different  method,  but  in  the  same 
spirit.  They  had,  when  this  history  encoun 
ters  them,  long  been  reaping.  Liquor  had 
gone  from  the  camp  nearly  two  years  before ; 
and,  as  has  appeared,  on  the  men's  own  initia 
tive.  The  hard  characters,  with  few  excep 
tions,  had  become  sturdy  friends  of  law  and 
order,  and  of  religion,  and  their  lives  matched 
the  friendship,  which  cannot  always  be  said  of 
such  friends  in  "  more  civilized  conditions." 

Among  results  which  had  already  been  real- 


For  More  Than  Dividends         193 

ized,  were  several  which  should  be  specially 
mentioned. 

The  Annie  Laurie  Mine  was  in  one  of  those 
Colorado  counties  that  are  big  enough  for  a 
state.  The  county  had  but  a  few  hundred 
inhabitants,  living  mainly  in  one  corner  of  it. 
When  John  Hope  sent  in  the  mine's  valuation 
to  the  county  assessor,  that  functionary  almost 
fainted.  When  he  had  recovered  himself,  he 
sent  it  back  for  correction.  "  Obvious  error," 
was  endorsed  across  the  sheet.  John  Hope 
returned  it,  saying  that  it  was  exact,  and  that 
to  deviate  from  it,  in  addition  or  diminution, 
would  be  to  defraud  either  the  mine  or  the 
county  and  state. 

When  the  mine's  valuation  was  added  to 
the  small  other  values  of  the  county,  the  total 
was  a  large  sum ;  the  tax  rate  became  thereby 
almost  incredibly  small ;  only  a  few  dollars 
were  assessed  even  on  those  ranchmen,  cattle 
men  and  storekeepers  who  were  accounted 
well-to-do  citizens ;  and  a  large  check  came 
from  John  Hope.  One  day  he  said  to  Duncan 
McLeod,  in  discussing  the  matter :  "  There  are 
those  who  remove  from  cities  to  small  coun 
try  towns  in  order  to  avoid  taxation.  They 
13 


194          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

even  go  so  far,  at  times,  as  to  offer  to  pay  the 
entire  town  expenses,  if  the  assessors  will  let 
them  alone.  This  offer  they  carry  out  in  true 
Gradgrind  fashion.  We,  on  the  contrary,  have 
been  strictly  honest ;  we  have  paid  a  large,  but 
only  a  just  tax,  our  fair  share  ;  and  with  what 
result  ?  The  county  is  better  looked  after 
than  ever ;  it  has  all  the  money  it  wants,  and 
is  prospering ;  we  get  no  small  share  of  the 
advantage  of  this,  as,  for  example,  in  our  fine 
road  to  the  railway  station;  and,  in  addition, 
we  are  granted  virtual  autonomy.  For,  ex 
cept  in  certain  intrinsic  county  functions,  like 
maintenance  of  highways,  records  of  transfers 
of  real  estate,  vital  statistics,  and  probate  mat 
ters,  the  county's  gratitude  to  us  is  so  great 
that  it  gives  us  self-government.  Jamie  Mc- 
Duff  is,  indeed,  a  deputy  sheriff,  but  he  has 
never  made  an  arrest.  What  have  we  not 
escaped,  and  what  have  we  not  gained,  in  be 
ing  thus  free  from  the  average  public  officers 
politically  appointed  ?  It  is  Utopia,  Duncan, 
in  its  possibilities  !  " 

And  he  that  tells  the  story,  adds :  O  young 
men  of  America,  those  of  you  who  long  to 
make  your  lives  count,  why  not  get  John 


For  More  Than  Dividends         195 

Hope's  and  Duncan  McLeod's  point  of  view  ? 
Why  not  acquire  your  Utopias,  and  realize 
them  ?  So  there  went,  in  the  late  'eighties, 
into  a  certain  Eocky  Mountain  village,  a 
young  educator,  to  an  institution  with  almost 
no  assets,  human  or  monetary,  except  a  large 
debt  and  small  credit.  There  he  set  himself 
to  his  task.  Nothing  could  tempt  him  away. 
He  declined  offer  after  offer,  far  more  flatter 
ing,  of  educational  leadership  in  "more  civi 
lized  conditions."  To-day  he  has  an  institution, 
out  of  debt  for  a  decade,  admirably  equipped, 
splendidly  manned,  and  crowded  with  stu 
dents,  with  a  spirit  and  standards  second  to 
none  in  America,  turning  out  men  and  women 
of  a  like  type.  He  carved  out  his  Utopia,  for 
he  could  not  have  accomplished  many  things 
that  he  has  accomplished,  in  a  less  flexible  en 
vironment;  and  he  is  magnificently  realizing 
its  possibilities. 

Go  ye,  O  young  men,  and  do  likewise ;  and 
especially  do  likewise  with  the  practical  bent 
of  our  two  friends  of  this  history.  Preaching 
and  theorizing,  the  Philistines  will  laugh  at. 
Before  the  shepherd  boy,  with  holy  purpose 
and  a  sure  aim,  some  of  them  will  fall. 


196          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

The  week  after  liquor  went  from  the  camp, 
by  an  almost  inevitable  economic  law,  the 
Annie  Laurie  Institution  for  Savings  was  or 
ganized.  George  Wilkinson,  President  of  the 
Miners'  Club,  was  made  its  president. 

A  word  about  George  Wilkinson.  He  was 
a  righteous,  forceful,  silent,  disheartened 
miner.  He  saw  Duncan  McLeod,  and  the 
sight  transformed  him.  He  was  never  known 
to  make  but  one  speech,  that  already  recorded, 
when  public  worship  was  begun  at  the  mine, 
He  read  a  paper  sometimes,  as  we  shall  see. 
He  was  so  reticent  on  religious  subjects  that 
even  Douglas  Campbell  did  not  know  where  he 
stood,  except  that  he  always  communed  when 
Duncan  McLeod  gave  the  invitation.  He  had 
a  head  for  business  fit  for  "Wall  Street.  He  had 
an  honesty  and  a  power  of  self-effacement 
that  would  make  "Wall  Street  fitter.  He  never 
lost  an  hour  in  his  miner's  work ;  but  he  put 
his  evenings  into  the  Institution  for  Savings. 
He  got  two  or  three  of  the  miners  who  were 
good  accountants  to  assist  him  with  the  de 
tails.  By  special  arrangement  his  and  their 
miner's  shifts  were  so  adjusted  that  they  had 
their  evenings  free  for  this  work.  In  it  he 


For  More  Than  Dividends         197 

exercised  an  insight  and  skill,  both  in  organiz 
ing  and  conducting  the  institution  and  in  mak 
ing  investments,  which  were  already  laying 
the  foundations  of  modest  competencies  for 
some  men  of  the  mine,  and  which  were  help 
ing  all  of  them.  He  had  this  peculiarity  also ; 
he  steadfastly  refused  to  accept  any  compensa 
tion  for  his  services,  except  pay  by  the  hour, 
at  the  same  rate  as  he  earned  in  the  levels. 
The  men  and  he  nearly  came  to  blows  about 
this.  "  Two  thousand  a  year  would  be  small 
pay  for  such  service,"  their  spokesman  said. 
But  George  Wilkinson  had  his  way  notwith 
standing.  In  a  paper  he  once  read  before  the 
Miners'  Club,  on  an  economic  question,  there 
occurred  this  sentence,  which  partly  cleared 
up  to  the  men  the  mystery  of  his  course  about 
his  compensation :  "  God  have  mercy  on  the 
man  with  large  gifts  in  industry  or  finance, 
whereby  he  might  render  high  service  to  the 
human  race,  who  prostitutes  those  gifts  by 
impoverishing  multitudes  of  men  in  pay  there 
for  !  " 

The  Institution  for  Savings  had  two  depart 
ments.  They  were  antithetical  to  two  great 
departments  of  modern  social  life,  the  liquor 


198          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

saloon  and  the  pawnshop.  It  was  a  remark 
of  George  Wilkinson's  worth  recording, -that 
"  Instalment  plans  and  chattel  mortgages  tend 
to  be  pawnshops  under  another  name."  By  a 
unique  by-law,  it  became  the  duty  of  the  di 
rectors  of  the  Institution  for  Savings  to  loan 
modest  sums  of  money  to  persons  in  need  at 
five  per  cent,  interest,  without  security  if 
their  character  justified,  and  with  security 
only  when  there  was  a  doubt.  How  many 
miners  were  tided  over  sicknesses  and  a  hun 
dred  other  exigencies  thereby,  without  loss  of 
self-respect  and  without  pecuniary  sacrifice, 
only  the  Judgment  Day  will  reveal.  "The 
well-to-do,"  said  George  "Wilkinson,  "can  al 
ways  borrow  at  reasonable  rates ;  it  is  the 
poor  whom  the  pawnshop  and  its  congeners 
bleed."  It  was  he,  whose  hate  of  that  sort  of 
thing  amounted  almost  to  a  passion,  that  sug 
gested  and  drafted  the  by-law  creating  this 
department. 

The  other  department,  that  of  savings  and 
investment,  was  conducted  as  is  usual  in  such 
institutions,  except  that  expenses  were  only 
nominal,  that  each  depositor  reaped  the  ad 
vantage  of  this, — for  the  institution  was 


For  More  Than  Dividends         199 

strictly  mutual, — and  that  the  returns  in  in 
terest  and  dividends  were  almost  phenomenal. 
What  the  saloon  used  to  get,  with  all  manner 
of  extra  costs,  the  Institution  for  Savings 
now  got,  to  bless  men  and  to  help  the  eco 
nomic  world. 

Of  the  reading  room ;  the  library ;  the  even 
ing  school ;  the  lecture  courses ;  the  instruction 
in  mining  engineering,  freely  given  to  large 
classes  by  Duncan  McLeod,  and  by  men  he 
trained  to  assist  him ;  the  gymnasium ;  the 
swimming  pool ;  the  clean  and  bright  local 
paper,  without  an  advertisement  in  it,  sus 
tained  partly  by  its  sales,  and  partly  by  a 
small  assessment  on  the  men,  which  they 
voted  and  rejoiced  in  ("  We  would  sustain  the 
pulpit,"  they  said,  "  and  our  paper  is  one  form 
of  pulpit, — clean,  moral,  sparkling,  uplift 
ing  ") ;  and  of  the  superbly  managed  coopera 
tive  store, — space  suffices  not  to  speak.  It 
requires,  however,  to  be  added  at  this  point, 
that  the  training  of  the  men  which  these 
things  afforded,  but  especially  Duncan's  classes 
in  mining  engineering, — a  training  always  as 
sociated  with  its  application  in  daily  work, — • 
developed  persons  of  such  quality  that  Duncan 


200          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

was  repeatedly  asked  to  name  individuals  from 
among  them  for  responsible  positions  at  other 
mines ;  so  that  he  and  his  men  were  becoming 
large  forces  in  that  general  mining  area.  Such 
was  a  mine  run  for  more  than  dividends. 

But  our  two  friends  were  far  from  satisfied 
with  these  achievements.  They  were  not 
socialists.  They  believed  in  individualism; 
but  in  individualism  realizing  itself  fully,  as  it 
only  can,  by  social  development.  Hence,  as 
they  shared  in  the  direction  and  profits  of  the 
mine,  they  desired  that,  along  principles  of  in 
dividualism,  every  humblest  worker  at  the 
mine,  who  was  faithful  to  it,  should  share  like 
wise  in  its  direction  and  profits.  The  entering 
wedge  thereto,  with  some  of  its  results,  will 
appear  in  the  next  chapter. 


XIII 

PROFIT-SHARING  AT  THE  ANNIE  LAURIE 


HOPE  insisted  on 
paying  the  men  of  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine 
weekly,  and  on  paying 
them  weekly  their  entire 
wage,  to  a  copper,  with 
out  anything  "  held  back 
on  account."  "It  is  a 
little  more  trouble,"  he 
said,  "  but  the  men  have  a  right  to  the  interest 
on  their  money,  not  we."  In  the  pay  envel 
opes,  on  the  Saturday  following  the  first  Sun 
day  of  public  worship,  along  with  the  money 
was  a  slip  on  which  were  printed  these  words  : 

"The  management  hopes  that  this  company  will  presently 
admit  all  its  faithful  employees  to  a  just  share  in  the  profits 
of  its  mine  ;  and,  ultimately,  to  some  real  share  in  the 
mine's  ownership  and  management.  For  the  sake  of  experi 
ment,  pending  the  formulating  of  a  plan  for  this,  a  certain 
sum  has  come  into  the  control  of  the  president,  to  be  used 
for  a  few  weeks  as  if  the  first  item  of  the  plan  were  already 
20  1 


2O2  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

in  operation.  The  memorandum  accompanying  the  cash 
in  this  envelope  will  indicate  what  part  of  the  cash  is  wages, 
and  what  is  a  share  of  the  profits." 

The  proportion,  be  it  said,  was  ten  per  cent, 
of  the  estimated  profits  of  the  mine  for  the 
week,  distributed  to  the  entire  pay  roll,  pro 
rata  to  each  man's  total  earnings.  Be  it 
added,  also,  that  the  "  certain  sum  "  was  per 
sonally  contributed  by  John  Hope  and  Duncan 
McLeod,  and  that  no  one  besides  themselves 
ever  knew  its  source.  Be  it  added,  moreover, 
that  George  Wilkinson,  who  was  like  a  wizard 
at  figures,  volunteered  to  apportion  the  bulk 
sum  to  each  man,  and  did  it  with  a  zeal  and 
accuracy  that  could  not  have  been  excelled. 
Be  it  added,  once  more,  that  such  were  John 
Hope's  intelligence  and  perfection  of  manage 
ment,  that,  at  the  middle  of  each  week,  the 
mine's  net  profits  for  the  even  week  preced 
ing  were  posted  in  a  book  prepared  for  the 
purpose,  with  a  precision  that,  on  its  being 
tested  through  long  periods,  like  a  quarter  or 
half  year,  surprised  even  himself.  What  came 
about,  during  the  weeks  that  followed,  was 
profit-sharing,  with  this  qualification,  that  two 
men,  who,  however,  owned  nearly  half  the 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    203 

mine,  contributed  the  funds  which  the  em 
ployees  shared.  This,  moreover,  was  done  as 
an  experiment  with  a  view  to  strict  profit- 
sharing  later. 

An  angel  from  heaven  would  not  have  been 
so  effective  as  this  slip  in  the  pay  envelopes  on 
that  Saturday.  Hope  had  at  length  turned  to 
sight.  No  faithful  worker  was  longer  a  mere 
wage-earner.  He  was  in  the  business.  He 
shared  its  proceeds.  He  might  accumulate 
beyond  a  pittance,  and  so  provide  for  himself 
and  for  others.  Furthermore,  the  mine  was 
so  profitable  that  the  additional  sum  to  each 
man  for  that  week  alone  was  surprisingly 
large.  In  the  mail  that  departed  from  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine  on  the  following  Monday 
morning  there  went  seventeen  letters  asking 
wives  to  be  ready  to  remove  thither  with  their 
children  upon  the  opening  of  the  spring ;  eleven 
proposals  of  marriage  from  men  who  would 
not  have  asked  the  hand  of  the  woman  they 
loved  for  average  mining  conditions;  and 
forty-nine  letters  containing  remittances  to 
persons  dependent  upon  the  writers. 

Meantime  Duncan  McLeod  began,  as  part 
of  the  program  of  the  Wednesday  night 


204          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

meetings,  a  series  of  brief  talks,  pithy,  full  of 
illustration,  and  of  the  keenest  interest,  on 
practical  duties,  such  as  sincerity,  industry, 
thrift,  getting  on  in  the  world,  social  obliga 
tions,  marriage,  making  a  home,  etc. 

"  B*  the  Holy  Mother,"  cried  Patrick  Sulli 
van,  after  the  first  of  these  talks,  as  his  eye 
ran  down  the  winsome  list  of  topics  for  the 
next  few  weeks,  which  Duncan  had  had  printed 
on  a  neat  card,  "  if  Sullivan  had  heard  talks 
like  thim  whin  he  was  one  and  twenty,  he  'd 
ha'  been  a  man ! " 

But  the  greatest  change  that  came  at  the 
mine  was  in  Duncan  McLeod  himself.  It  was 
everybody's  talk.  But  for  a  chivalrous  del 
icacy  that,  like  the  breath  of  a  home,  had  be 
gun  to  mark  the  men,  Duncan  would  surely 
have  overheard  some  of  it.  As  it  was,  he  was 
beautifully  unconscious  of  it  all,  and  of  what 
had  happened  within  himself,  save  as  some 
words  of  his  to  his  mother,  about  to  be  re 
corded,  will  indicate.  John  Hope  did,  indeed, 
one  day,  in  his  wise  way,  remark :  "  Duncan, 
you  always  reminded  me  of  a  Messianic  psalm 
in  this  camp;  but,  since  the  services  began, 
it  has  been  more  as  if  the  Messiah  himself  had 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    205 

come."  Then  John's  lips  quivered,  and  he 
turned  away. 

The  services  had  begun  the  last  Sunday  in 
November.  In  a  letter  to  his  mother,  written 
in  the  middle  of  February,  Duncan  said : 

"  My  mother,  my  heart  is  broken.  It  seems 
as  if  it  never  would  heal.  In  fact,  I  do  not 
want  it  to.  Something  would  be  the  matter 
with  me  if  any  but  Kathleen  could  heal  it. 

"  But,  O  my  mother,  the  disclosures  of  God 
this  sair  hurt  has  brought  me ;  the  manifesta 
tion  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  present  Saviour  of  an 
infinite  love;  and  the  tenderness  for  every 
body,  even  the  vilest,  that  the  twain  have 
wrought  in  my  heart, — I  would  have  died  a 
thousand  deaths  rather  than  to  have  missed. 

"  The  Valley  of  Baea,  my  mother,  is  become 
a  well." 

Some  glimpses  of  an  evening  at  the  Miners* 
Club,  late  in  February,  the  night  before  John 
Hope  started  for  New  York  to  attend  the 
meeting  of  the  Annie  Laurie  stockholders,  to 
be  held  March  1,  will  set  forth  how  profit- 
sharing  worked,  and  what  the  general  tone  of 
the  mine  had  by  this  time  become. 

It  was  a  special  occasion.    By  an  adjustment 


206          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

in  the  mining  work,  it  was  possible  for  nearly 
every  man  to  be  present,  and  no  one  able  to 
be  there  was  absent.  After  some  preliminary 
business,  a  paper  by  George  Wilkinson  was 
announced,  with  the  statement  that  Mr.  Hope 
would  like  to  say  a  few  words  before  the  paper 
began.  Mr.  Hope  rose  in  his  place,  but  was 
called  to  the  front,  and,  on  coming  forward, 
paused  until  the  silence  became  almost  oppress 
ive.  He  then  spoke  as  follows : 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  can  hardly  control 
myself  to  speak."  His  chin  twitched,  his  eyes 
filled,  and  only  by  the  most  resolute  self-re 
straint  did  he,  after  a  moment,  command  him 
self.  Then  he  proceeded :  "  I  will  not  dwell 
upon  the  religious  side  of  the  months  since  we 
began  public  worship  here.  The  souls  born 
into  the  kingdom,  the  Christian  lives  quick 
ened,  and  the  entirely  new  life  that  has  'be 
come  like  a  second  nature  to  us  now,  cannot 
be  suitably  characterized.  But  when  I  think 
of  the  women  and  children  that,  perhaps  be 
fore  my  return,  will  be  reunited  with  husbands 
and  fathers ;  and  when  I  think  of  the  confi 
dences  that  have  been  reposed  in  me  by  lovers 
who  will  shortly  be  slipping  away  to  claim 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    207 

their  brides, — I  am  deeply  moved.  I  am,  as 
you  know,  a  lone  man,  but  I  had  a  mother  and 
father,  and  they  were  lovers  until  the  father 
passed  on, — yes,  are  lovers,  I  am  sure,  still.  I 
thank  God ;  and  I  thank  the  splendid  bearing 
and  temper  of  our  men,  which,  so  soon,  will 
make  possible  a  very  considerable  community 
of  homes  gathering  around  our  plant.  Pardon 
me,  but  I  could  not  help  referring  to  these 
matters.  They  mean  better  days  yet  for  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

"What  I  want  specially  to  speak  of  is  a 
somewhat  fully  matured  plan  which  I  am  to 
lay  before  our  stockholders  next  week,  con 
templating,  out  of  the  assets  of  the  mine,  a 
regular  percentage,  week  by  week,  on  its  prof 
its,  to  go  to  every  approved  worker  from  low 
est  to  highest.  This  has  been  the  case,  experi 
mentally,  for  a  good  many  weeks,  out  of  a 
fund  in  the  president's  hands,  but  I  desire  it  to 
become  the  established  policy  of  this  mine. 
Wot  only  so,  but,  in  some  just  way, — hard  to 
be  worked  out,  because  it  is  an  intricate  sub 
ject,  but  which,  if  I  can  have  my  way,  shall  be 
worked  out, — I  am  going  to  propose  to  the 
stockholders  that  the  men  of  this  mine  shall 


208          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

themselves  presently  have  opportunity  to  own 
an  appreciable  part  of  it.  That  this  plan  be 
not  one-sided,  I  am  going,  moreover,  to  suggest 
to  the  stockholders  the  appointment  of  one  or 
more  persons  on  their  side,  to  confer  with  one 
or  more  persons  on  your  side,  in  formulating 
the  method.  I  suppose,  since  the  shares  are 
so  few, — only  one  hundred,— and  you  are  so 
many,  that  such  ownership  will  have  to  be  in 
bulk,  the  stock  held,  perhaps,  by  a  board  of 
trust  on  your  part ;  but,  whether  in  that  way, 
or  in  some  other,  I  want  it  to  be  a  real  owner 
ship  in  this  mine  by  the  men  who  desire  it. 
And,  on  the  same  principle,  I  want  the  men  to 
be  represented  in  the  management,  propor 
tionally  to  their  share  of  the  ownership." 

Prolonged  and  prodigious  applause  ensued, 
which  John  Hope  silenced  by  a  motion  of  his 
hand. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  proceeded,  "I  may  not  be 
able  to  effect  these  things ;  but  I  have  some 
impressive  facts  to  present  to  you,  which  you 
yourselves  have  brought  about,  and  which  will 
be  the  strongest  possible  argument  to  sustain 
my  proposition.  As  you  are  perhaps  aware, 
we  have  a  system  of  accounting  and  estimat- 


Prolit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    209 

ing  at  this  mine,  so  that,  every  Wednesday, 
we  know,  with  an  accuracy  that  is  truly  sur 
prising,  just  what  our  profits  were  for  the  pre 
ceding  even  week.  For  the  first  full  week 
after  you  began  sharing  in  the  profits,  they 
increased  four  per  cent. ;  the  next  week,  seven 
per  cent.;  the  next,  nine.  The  fourth  week 
was  one  of  terrific  cold.  This  so  interferes,  as 
you  know,  with  our  work,  that,  ordinarily,  our 
profits  would  have  dropped  from  ten  to 
twenty-five  per  cent,  below  the  notch  they 
were  at.  On  the  contrary,  they  a  little  more 
than  held  their  own.  For  the  fifth  week, — 
reckoning,  as  in  all  these  instances,  by  com 
parison  with  the  last  week  before  the  profit- 
sharing  began, — which,  by  the  way,  was  a  very 
good  week, — the  increase  became  eleven  per 
cent.  From  that  time  on,  it  has  been  steadily 
climbing,  until,  last  week,  our  profits,  with  no 
appreciable  change  in  conditions,  but  only  in 
the  spirit  and  efficiency  of  the  men,  were  nine 
teen  per  cent,  above  that  standard.  In  short, 
by  your  deepening  interest  and  faithfulness,  as 
the  result  of  this  experiment,  you  have  more 
than  earned  the  ten  per  cent,  of  profits  which, 
week  by  week,  have  gone  to  you  in  your  pay 
14 


2io          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

envelopes.  This,  gentlemen,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  righteousness  in  the  case,  demonstrates 
that  the  system  pays  for  itself,  which  I  have 
always  contended  that  it  would.  For  this 
superb  result,  men  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine, 
I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart ;  and,  God  help 
ing  me,  you  shall  have  your  reward." 

Hereupon  John  Hope  returned  to  his  seat, 
but  not  for  long.  The  applauding  that  began 
upon  his  last  syllable  went  on  until  the  men 
stood  on  their  chairs,  threw  up  their  hats,  and, 
as  by  a  common  impulse,  rushed  upon  him, 
lifted  him  upon  their  shoulders,  and,  forming 
in  procession,  like  college  boys  when  they  have 
won  on  gridiron  or  river,  bore  him  around  the 
hall,  singing  songs  as  they  went,  and  cheering 
him  to  the  echo.  This  he  meekly  bore,  for  he 
had  a  boy's  heart,  though  he  would  gladly 
have  prevented  it,  until,  at  a  favorable  mo 
ment,  between  the  stanzas  of  a  song,  he  leaped 
down,  ran  to  the  platform,  and,  in  thunderous 
tones,  exclaimed,  "  Gentlemen,  I  am  astounded 
at  such  unparliamentary  conduct !  You  will 
at  once  come  to  order."  The  laugh  was  then 
on  them,  the  chairman  assumed  the  gavel,  and 
John  Hope  went  back  to  his  seat. 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    2 1 1 

When  George  Wilkinson  rose  to  read  his 
paper,  he  prefaced  it  by  these  words :  "  Karely 
have  you  heard  a  religious  expression  from  my 
lips.  What  I  want  to  say  now,  and  especially 
after  what  we  have  just  heard,  is,  that  if 
heaven  is  more  blessed  than  life  at  this  mine 
has  been  since  the  profit-sharing  began,  I  shall 
be  afraid  the  blessedness  will  hurt  us." 

This  speech — for,  to  the  minds  of  the  men, 
so  many  consecutive  words  not  read  from  a 
paper,  and  proceeding  from  their  president, 
seemed  a  speech — occasioned  another  tumult 
of  applause. 

"  It  is  important,  in  considering  the  indus 
trial-economic  problem,"  George  Wilkinson 
read  from  his  manuscript,  "  to  see  the  whole 
question,  and  not  merely  a  part  of  it.  Each 
side  has  a  case.  If  each  side  would  try  to  oc 
cupy  the  other's  point  of  view,  we  should  get 
on  faster.  We  have  often  considered  the  side 
of  the  workingman,  and  of  poverty.  We 
have  too  often  forgotten  the  side  of  the  capi 
talist  and  of  wealth.  I  am  asking  you  briefly, 
to-night,  to  let  me  state  the  case  on  the  side  of 
capital  and  wealth.  Answers  to  these  posi 
tions  will,  in  part,  readily  occur  to  us  all ;  but 


212  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  point  I  am  making  is,  that  we  tend  to  see 
our  side,  and  not  the  other  side.  Will  it  not  be 
best,  on  the  contrary,  to-night,  for  us  to  give 
our  attention,  not  to  answering  these  points, 
and  making  out  a  counter  case,  but  to  under 
standing  and  appreciating  the  points  them 
selves?  Consider,  too,  the  means,  the  stand 
ing  and  the  power,  classifying  as  capitalist 
power,  which  belong  to  our  president,  to  the 
stockholders  in  this  mine,  and  to  our  head 
assayer.  And  yet  consider  that  these  persons 
are  trying,  nevertheless,  to  see  our  side  of  the 
question,  and  to  meet  it  in  the  magnificent 
way  in  which  they  are  meeting  it.  Is  not  the 
class  which,  however  little  they  may  sympa 
thize  with  it,  they,  in  a  sense,  represent,  and 
are  not  they  themselves,  entitled  to  the  treat 
ment  which  I  now  propose  ?  " 

Here  the  entire  audience  applauded,  not,  in 
deed,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  with  the 
abandon  of  the  earlier  demonstrations,  but 
with  a  hearty  good- will,  and  the  applause  was 
much  prolonged. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  George  Wilkinson ;  "  and 
may  I  now  ask  your  attention  to  the  following 
ten  points,  which  I  venture  to  name — 


Proiit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    213 

"  *  THE  CASE  ON  THE  SIDE  OF  WEALTH  '  ? 

"  First. — Poverty  is,  in  many  instances,  and 
to  no  small  extent,  the  fault  of  the  poor. 
Many  of  them  drink.  They  have  other  vices. 
Or  they  are  indolent,  unenterprising,  bad 
managers.  Unthrift  and  poverty  are  next  of 
kin. 

"  Second. — Poverty's  case  is  made  worse  by 
bad  advisers.  Instead  of  counsel  looking  to 
obviating  it  from  within,  by  courage,  industry, 
thrift  and  enterprise,  all  sorts  of  nostrums 
are  offered  for  outward  application.  Particu 
larly,  in  labor  organizations,  which  have  many 
excellences,  there  is,  nevertheless,  much  cheap 
demagogism,  and,  in  frequent  instances,  an  ab 
sence  of  reason,  of  good  judgment  and  even  of 
common  justice.  In  America  this  is  far  of- 
tener  the  case  than  in  Great  Britain. 

"  Third.— Poverty  has  its  advantages.  If 
it  occasions  anxiety,  so  do  riches.  The  rich 
man  would  often  be  glad  to  exchange  his  for 
that  of  the  workingman.  Poverty,  also,  is  a 
great  spur  to  endeavor.  Most  persons  of 
wealth  came  up  from  poverty,  either  directly, 
or  within  two  or  three  generations  ;  and  its 
pressure  was  largely  the  goad  that  occasioned 


214          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

their  escape.  The  struggles  of  poverty,  more 
over,  induce  strength,  endurance,  a  valiant 
temper,  and  other  highly  serviceable  traits. 

"Fourth. — Wealth  develops  the  country, 
undertakes  large  enterprises,  organizes  in 
dustry,  and  affords  it  employment.  It  is  a 
public  benefactor,  even  were  it  never  benevo 
lent. 

"Fifth. — Wealth,  in  its  very  nature,  re 
quires  wealth.  The  conditions  which  it  in 
volves  necessitate  vastly  heavier  expenditures 
than  the  conditions  of  labor  necessitate.  For 
this  reason,  wealthy  men  are  often  under  as 
great  pecuniary  pressure,  relatively  speaking, 
as  the  person  who  knows  not  whence  his  next 
meal  will  come.  Living,  too,  as  its  possessors 
feel  themselves  obliged  to  live,  the  plain  con 
ditions  of  many  workingmen's  lives  would  be 
injurious  or  fatal  to  them,  and  to  those  de 
pendent  on  them.  The  great  brain  power, 
moreover,  required  in  organizing  industry,  and 
in  carrying  on  large  enterprises,  deserves 
large  compensation.  Such  compensation  is, 
though  often  extravagantly,  the  wage  rate  for 
it,  as  comparatively  small  pay  is  for  the  laborer. 

"  Sixth. — Wealth    gives.     It  gives   unceas- 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    215 

ingly.  The  sum  total  of  its  benevolences,  if 
that  total  could  ever  be  ascertained,  would  be 
almost  incredibly  large. 

"  Seventh. — The  { unearned  increment/  so 
called,  in  the  value  of  real  estate  and  other 
properties,  has,  closely  paralleling  it,  an  '  un 
divided  decrement.'  Values  shrink  from  in 
numerable  causes,  and  incessantly ;  there  are 
losses,  failures  and  disasters,  all  the  harder  to 
bear  because  of  previous  affluence.  Any 
theory  of  profit-sharing,  or  of  joint  ownership 
with  labor,  must  carefully  take  into  account 
the  '  undivided  decrement,'  and  provide  for  it. 
It  is  this  matter  of  the  '  undivided  decrement ' 
that  introduces  almost  the  most  perplexing 
element  into  any  application  of  the  theory  of 
profit-sharing. 

"  Eighth. — In  very  many  instances,— if  not 
a  majority,  certainly  a  large  minority, — 
employers  would  be  glad  to  pay  higher  wages, 
and  otherwise  to  do  for  their  employees ;  but 
they  cannot,  because  of  the  stress  of  competi 
tion,  because  of  the  arbitrary  requirements  of 
combinations  of  wealth,  and,  also,  not  infre 
quently,  because  of  the  arbitrariness  of  labor 
organizations.  Such  employers,  speaking  in 


216          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  large,  are,  very  generally,  doing  the  best 
they  can,  and  deplore  the  fact  that  they  cannot 
do  better.  One  of  them,  for  example,  who  was 
undergoing  Herculean  toils  to  keep  a  large 
factory  from  shutting  down,  and  who  was  doing 
so,  in  the  then  circumstances,  at  a  slight  loss, 
and  almost  exclusively  with  the  motive  of  pre 
venting  his  employees  from  having  nothing  to 
do, — said  on  a  certain  occasion :  '  I  would  far 
rather  take  a  dinner-pail,  and  go  to  the  mill 
for  my  day's  work,  than  carry  what  I  shall 
carry  to-day.1  Because  there  are  many  shock 
ing  instances  of  the  precise  opposite,  we  should 
not  be  blinded  to  the  fact  that  there  are  multi 
tudes  whose  theory  and  practice  are  the  best 
that  conditions  will  permit. 

"  Ninth. — The  hearts  of  many  of  the  well- 
to-do,  and  even  of  the  very  rich,  are  right  on 
this  problem.  They  brood  over  the  situation 
as  painfully,  often,  as  do  wage-earners.  This 
fact  is  very  largely  overlooked  when  motives 
are  estimated,  and  harsh  judgments  passed. 

"Tenth. — It  follows,  as  a  corollary,"  George 
Wilkinson  concluded,  "that  the  way  out  is 
not  in  the  opposition  of  class  to  class,  of  capi 
tal  to  labor,  of  wealth  to  poverty ;  but  in  their 


Profit-Sharing  at  the  Annie  Laurie    217 

getting  together ;  in  their  understanding  one 
another;  in  a  large  forbearance  one  toward 
another;  and  in  those  profoundly  rational 
principles  of  brotherhood  and  of  cooperation, 
which  shall  not  restrict  individualism,  in 
itiative,  the  right  of  holding  property,  enter 
prise,  ambition,  and  so  forth ;  but  which  shall 
conform  the  operation  of  these  capacities,  with 
love  for  others,  with  zeal  for  the  common 
good,  and  with  those  large  and  comprehensive 
interests  of  mankind  in  which  every  in 
dividual's  interests  are  inseparably  bound  up." 

Applause  ensued  as  George  Wilkinson  took 
his  seat.  It  was  of  a  quiet  but  sincere  sort, 
and  continued  for  a  considerable  time.  A 
number  of  the  members,  in  remarking  upon 
the  paper,  emphasized  its  stronger  points.  A 
motion  of  thanks  for  it  was  carried  by  a  unan 
imous  rising  vote,  and  the  meeting  ad 
journed.  Before  the  men  dispersed,  they 
formed  in  line,  and  shook  hands  good-bye 
with  the  president  of  the  mine,  the  hand 
shaking  being  accompanied  by  many  touching 
words  of  personal  appreciation  and  gratitude. 

Such  was  the  spirit  prevalent  and  regnant 
at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  when  John  Hope, 


218          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

gladder  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  be 
fore,  mounted  the  stage  at  three  o'clock  on 
the  following  morning,  and,  under  the  stars, 
rode  down  the  valley,  entered  the  canon,  and 
thence  pressed  on  his  way,  in  the  tender 
breaking  of  the  morning  light,  for  the  railway 
station,  seventy  miles  distant,  whence  he  was 
to  take,  at  six  o'clock  the  next  evening,  the 
transcontinental  mail  for  New  York,  where  he 
hoped  to  see  the  dream  of  his  life  begin  to 
take  lasting  shape  by  a  solid  vote  of  his  stock 
holders. 


XIY 

BONAPARTE  SHAEP,   CAPTAIN  OF  FINANCE 

E.  BONAPAETE 
SHAEP  lived  on  Mur 
ray  Hill.  He  had  a 
large  estate  at  New 
port.  His  lodge  in  the 
Adirondacks  was  the  admiration  of  his  set. 
It  was  pronounced  "truly  baronial."  On  a 
height  along  the  middle  Hudson  stood  "The 
Eetreat " ;  his  "little  place,"  he  would  remark, 
"  to  run  to  for  a  day,  when  you  are  tired  and 
want  to  be  alone."  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was 
never  tired,  never  wanted  to  be  alone,  and 
rarely  gave  himself  a  day  off  from  his  cap 
taincy  of  finance ;  so  that  the  words,  "  when 
you  are  tired,"  and  so  forth,  in  this  character 
ization,  were  more  accurate  than  he  intended. 
As  it  was  but  a  "  little  place,"  he  had  econo 
mized,  and  had  put  only  three-quarters  of  a 
million  into  it. 

It  was  admitted  that  Mr.  Nicholas  Stone's 
219 


22O          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

yacht  was  fifty  feet  longer  than  his,  and  that 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  more 
had  been  spent  on  it;  but  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp's  set  regarded  its  magnificence  as 
coarse,  if  not  vulgar,  and  was  entirely  certain 
that  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  yacht,  for  perfec 
tion  of  design,  ease  at  sea,  speed,  richness  and 
elegance  in  every  appointment,  quiet,  well- 
bred  luxury,  chef,  table,  and  brands  of  drink 
ables,  was  the  one  yacht  worth  speaking  of  in 
New  York  waters.  It  was,  it  should  be 
added,  like  Mr.  Nicholas  Stone's,  a  "  yacht " 
only  by  courtesy,  being  in  point  of  fact  a  sea 
going  steamship  of  considerable  size,  which 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  would  have  enjoyed 
himself,  if  he  could  ever  get  away  from  busi 
ness,  but  which  was  always  at  the  service  of 
his  friends,  cruising  now  toward  Labrador  in 
summer,  to  the  Bahamas  or  the  Mediterra 
nean  ports  in  winter,  and  performing  countless 
lesser  journeys,  like  a  run  to  Old  Point  Com 
fort  and  up  the  Potomac  to  Mount  Yernon, 
or  around  Cape  Ann  to  the  Isles  of  Shoals, 
or  setting  down  some  nervous  invalid  at 
Fayal. 

To  be  exact,  there  were  voyagers  on  this 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  221 

yacht,  some  of  whom  took  the  longest  and 
most  charming  cruises,  who  failed  to  look 
back  on  the  experience  with  unqualified  sat 
isfaction.  Something  would  happen  while 
they  were  absent,  in  stocks,  or  in  real  estate, 
or  in  some  comprehensive  corporation  char 
tered  under  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  Jer 
sey,  which  would  cause  them  to  stay  at  home 
the  rest  of  their  lives.  ""We  must  always," 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  would  say  to  his  con 
fidential  man,  "see  to  it  that  the  yacht  pays 
its  way."  "With  rare  exceptions,  whatever 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  said  must  be  done  was 
done;  and,  as  a  consequence,  painful  though 
it  is  to  record,  as  time  went  on,  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp's  yacht  was  not  considered  a  whit  less 
elegant,  nor  its  cuisine  less  to  be  desired,  but  it 
grew  more  and  more  difficult  to  make  up 
cruising  parties  for  it. 

Besides  the  four  residences  already  men 
tioned,  and  this  his  floating  palace,  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  had  intended  a  domicil  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  True,  he  could  never  spare 
the  time  to  go  there ;  but  an  architect  and  ex 
pert  in  landscape,  of  really  extraordinary 
talent,  but  bankrupt  and  helpless  pecuniarily, — 


222          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

to  whom,  as  one  of  his  "  bargains,"  he  paid  a 
pittance  for  being  always  at  his  beck  and  call, 
and  whom  he  had  sent  to  exploit  those  high 
lands  of  America, — assured  him  that  certain 
eyries  near  Colorado  Springs  were  exactly  his 
location ;  and  he  had  already  gone  so  far  as  to 
have  this  gifted  servant  of  his  invite  a  confer 
ence  of  several  foremost  New  York  architects 
about  designs  and  probable  cost.  "  I  intend," 
said  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  to  them,  "  that  no 
private  establishment  between  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Pacific  coast  shall  equal  it  for  extent, 
startling  and  yet  tasteful  effect,  and  richness 
and  magnificence  of  appointment.  I  shall, 
myself,  rarely,  if  ever,  occupy  it ;  but  I  have 
purposes  in  that  area,  and  it  is  important 
there,  as  everywhere  else,  to  make  an  impres 
sion."  "  "We  '11  figure  to  get  the  money  back," 
he  added  to  his  confidential  man. 

Now  it  chanced  that  there  was  in  Colorado 
a  captain  of  finance  of  another  feather.  He 
got  wind  of  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  design, 
and,  somehow,  it  became  impossible  for  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp's  representatives  to  acquire 
any  of  the  desired  freeholds.  It  was  like  the 
Connecticut  story,  much  tasted  in  its  day, 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  223 

tradition  assures  us,  concerning  an  old-time 
minister  of  East  Hartford.  A  certain  great 
man  from  one  of  the  Hartford  churches  began 
to  attend'  the  East  Hartford  ministrations. 
He  always  remained  after  service  to  thank 
the  minister  for  his  sermon,  and,  incidentally, 
to  complain  that  he  never  got  "  fed  "  on  the 
west  side  of  the  river.  Presently  he  inter 
viewed  the  minister  about  transferring  his 
church  membership,  and,  of  course,  his  bene 
factions,  to  East  Hartford.  The  minister  lis 
tened  with  rapt  attention  to  the  tale,  which 
was  very  long  and  affecting,  and  the  great 
man  supposed  he  was  getting  on  famously, 
when,  suddenly,  the  minister  closed  the  inter 
view  with  the  following  unexampled  words : 

"  It  is  very  kind  of  you,  Brother ,  I  am 

sure,  to  be  drawn  toward  us  of  East  Hartford, 
in  our  humble  place,  and  with  our  small  min 
isterial  gifts;  but,  to  tell  the  truth,  Brother 

,  the  church  in  East  Hartford  is  full" 

When,  however,  some  years  later,  the  Colo 
rado  captain  of  finance  before  mentioned  had 
disposed  of  a  very  large  corporate  property 
which  he  had  built  up  by  just  methods  and 
great  energy,  foresight  and  sagacity ;  and 


224          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

when,  after  the  sale,  he  divided  a  million  of 
the  proceeds  among  the  men  who  had  helped 
him  to  make  the  enterprise  a  success, — Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  was  furious.  "  Great  luck," 
he  said,  "  that  kept  me  out  of  Colorado !  Such 
neighbors  would  drive  me  wild.  They  are 
pulling  down  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  so 
ciety  over  our  heads  !  " 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  rented  the  costliest 
pew  in  a  fashionable  New  York  church. 
When  its  minister  preached  straight,  which  he 
generally  did,  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  slept. 
But  that  minister  had  imagination,  genius,  and 
the  mystic  power  of  eloquence,  and  there 
would  always  be  five  minutes,  somewhere  in 
the  sermon,  when  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  would 
wake  up,  rub  his  hands,  and  get  ready  to  say, 
when  going  out,  "Our  minister  can  preach 
all  around  any  man  in  Greater  New  York." 
There  came  a  crisis,  as  was  inevitable,  between 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  and  that  minister,  in 
which  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  undertook,  as  he 
expressed  it,  to  "  discharge  "  him.  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp's  grievance  was  "  heresy " ;  not, 
however,  let  any  one  imagine,  the  plain,  ordi 
nary  brand,  but  "  economic  heresy."  The  up- 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  225 

shot  of  this  attempt  was,  that  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  himself  came  very  near  being  "dis 
charged."  Then,  for  several  months,  he  un 
dertook,  at  a  number  of  other  fashionable 
churches,  the  East  Hartford  scheme,  with  pre 
cisely  the  same  result,  except  that  it  lacked 
the  element  of  humor.  After  these  various 
attempts,  he  re-leased  his  old  costliest  pew, 
lengthened  his  naps,  and  felicitated  himself 
that,  "For  pure  and  downright  pulpit  elo 
quence,  though  I  often  find  myself  disagree 
ing  with  it,  our  church  has  cornered  the  entire 
preaching  market." 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  favorite  Scripture 
character  was  Jacob.  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp, 
however,  never  read  farther  in  the  patri 
arch's  biography  than  the  stock-raising  period. 
"  Jacob  is  my  ideal,"  he  would  say,  with  re 
assuring  frankness  ;  "  everything  against  him ; 
got  there  notwithstanding ;  contracted  with 
Laban ;  kept  contract  to  the  letter ;  courts 
could  n't  interfere ;  fixed  it,  though ;  got  the 
sheep.  A  little  'near'?  Of  course;  had  a 
right  to  be  ;  man  with  business  in  him 's  got  a 
right  to  realize.  Good  thing  for  Laban,  too ; 
never  prospered  so  much  as  after  Jacob  came, 
'5 


226          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

The  leavings  of  a  man  that  has  business  in 
him  are  better  than  the  entire  assets  of  a  man 
that  has  n't.  So,  too,  some  of  my  specialties 
have,  perhaps,  squeezed;  hard  lines  for  some 
folks ;  but  the  goods  were  never  put  on  the 
market  so  cheap ;  the  general  public  dividends, 
anyhow." 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  acquired  Annie  Laurie 
stock  through  Peter  Wainwright,  a  million 
aire  college  classmate  of  John  Hope,  who  was 
engaged  to  marry  Miss  Eugenie,  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp's  daughter.  A  multi-millionaire 
appeared;  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  commanded 
Miss  Eugenie  to  break  the  engagement;  and 
the  multi-millionaire  was  the  second  of  the 
two  central  figures  at  the  great  wedding,  at 
the  "  truly  baronial "  lodge  in  the  Adirondacks, 
which,  candor  compels  us  to  state,  had  been 
largely  arranged  for  while  it  had  been  still  ex 
pected  that  Peter  Wainwright  would  have 
said  the  responses  along  with  Miss  Eugenie. 

The  great  wedding  filled  the  papers  for  a 
fortnight.  It  was  the  social  event  of  the  sum 
mer.  A  few  days  before  it  came  off,  a  special 
steamer  up  the  Hudson  and  a  special  train  into 
the  woods  took  to  the  "truly  baronial "  lodge 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  227 

a  small  army  of  newspaper  artists  and  corre 
spondents.  "  Nothing  like  making  an  impres 
sion,"  said  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  to  his  confi 
dential  man ;  "  the  money  will  all  come  back." 
What  the  bride-to-be  did,  and  did  not  do ;  how 
she  spent  her  time,  morning,  afternoon  and 
evening ;  her  toilet  on  all  of  these  occasions ; 
whether  she  looked  pleased,  abstracted,  or 
anxious ;  her  exact  remarks  to  her  footman  on 
her  drives,  and  to  her  waiting-maid  in  her 
walks ;  all  this,  with  much  besides, — not  with 
out  a  certain  delicacy,  either,  be  it  said  to  the 
credit  of  artists  and  correspondents ;  for  poor 
Miss  Eugenie  was  a  sweet  girl,  who  deserved  to 
have  had  a  different  father,  and  to  have  married 
the  man  she  loved,  and  whose  look  in  those 
tragic  days  was  mainly  "  abstracted,"  and,  to 
be  entirely  truthful,  very  sad, — all  this,  with 
much  besides,  was  photographed,  crayoned, 
polychromed,  scare-head-lined,  double-leaded, 
editorial-noted,  editorial-leadered,  four-col 
umned,  four-paged,  and  Sunday-editioned,  to 
the  satisfaction,  if  possible,  even  of  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp. 

Since  he  enjoyed  print  so  much,  this  modest 
history  would  be  derelict  to  duty  if  it  did  not 


228          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

set  down  faithfully  a  few  additional  points  of 
his  "highly  instructive"  (so  a  biographical 
dictionary  man  characterized  it  to  him,  as  he 
took  copious  notes) — obituary  ? — far  other 
wise  ! — biography,  having,  alas !  according  to 
all  appearances,  yet  many  years  to  run. 

There  was  a  man — Smith,  let  us  call  him — 
in  a  certain  section  of  this  great  country 
which  we  also  call  free.  He  had  built  up  a 
large  and  prosperous  business  by  industry, 
thrift,  enterprise,  square  dealing,  paying  the 
best  wages  possible,  treating  his  employees 
considerately,  and  serving  his  thousands  of 
patrons  well.  One  of  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's 
specialties  entered  his  section.  It  got  small 
foothold  because  its  methods  were  diametric 
ally  opposite  to  those  the  section  had  been 
used  to.  About  this  time  Smith  received 
from  several  mysterious  sources  proposal  after 
proposal  to  sell  out.  Smith  said,  No :  he  had 
put  a  lifetime  into  the  business ;  it  was  re 
munerative;  it  benefited  the  public;  he  was 
proud  of  it;  he  wanted  to  leave  it  to  his 
children. 

"  But  why  not  leave  them  the  money  ?  "  he 
would  be  asked. 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  229 

"Money?"  Smith  would  scornfully  answer ; 
"  what  is  money,  compared  with  an  occupation 
that  you  like,  that  you  are  fitted  for,  that  you 
can  serve  the  community  by,  that  you  are 
prosperous  in,  that  you  are  proud  of,  and  that 
you  expect  your  sons  to  inherit  ?  " 

Smith,  as  the  reader  will  have  perceived, 
was  the  kind  of  person  that  looks  straight 
into  the  barrel  of  a  hold-up's  revolver,  with 
holds  his  purse,  expostulates,  and,  if  necessary, 
grapples  with  him.  A  considerable  number 
of  such  men,  widely  distributed,  would  make 
the  hold-up  business  unpopular.  He  did  not 
know  that  it  was  different  with  the  Bonaparte 
Sharp  specialties. 

They  cut  the  price  in  two. 

He  met  the  cut,  and  corresponded,  and 
visited  E~ew  York,  in  expostulation. 

They  cut  the  price  in  two  again. 

So  did  he. 

When  he  had  little  left,  he  offered  to  sell. 

They  laughed  at  him. 

He  is  a  poor  man  now ;  lives  in  a  small 
tenement ;  earns  monthly  wages  by  clerking 
in  the  only  line  he  knows ;  bears  his  successive 
reductions  of  wages  with  the  best  grace  he 


230          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

can  command ;  is  apprehensive  of  losing  his 
job ;  fears  the  poor-farm. 

"  I  know  a  railroad,  near  the  Atlantic  sea 
board,"  he  once  said,  "  that  has  the  shortest 
route  between  two  great  cities,  and  that  was 
built  largely  by  poor  people,  with  expectations 
which  the  geography  justified.  The  circuitous 
lines  already  constructed,  however,  discrimi 
nated  against  it,  impoverished  it,  themselves 
consolidated,  had  therefore  completer  power, 
starved  it  out,  and  then  bought  it  for  a  song. 
I  knew  they  would  do  that  sort  of  thing  to  a 
railroad ;  I  did  n't  suppose  they  would  do  it  to 
a  man." 

While  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was  rehearsing 
to  himself  his  favorite  theorem,  that  "the 
leavings  of  a  man  that  has  business  in  him  are 
better  than  the  entire  assets  of  a  man  that 
hasn't,"  and  was  boasting  that  the  section 
he  had  invaded  bought  his  goods  ten  per  cent, 
cheaper  than  it  ever  bought  the  corresponding 
goods  before, — he  cut  his  pay-roll  in  that 
section,  first  fifteen  per  cent.,  then  twenty- 
five,  and  eventually  fifty ;  paid  less  than  one- 
fourth  the  taxes  that  were  paid  by  the  man 
whom  he  had  ruined  ;  loaned  money  (never  on 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  231 

security  less  than  twice  the  face  of  his  loan, 
and  "gilt-edged")  to  fight  every  just  strike 
that  occurred  in  that  section;  and,  speaking 
generally,  was  a  malign  and  pestilent  in 
fluence  in  a  part  of  the  United  States  that,  be 
fore  his  advent,  had  had  an  enviable  industrial- 
economic  record.  These  were  his  "  leavings." 
This  was  the  manner  in  which,  to  use  his 
characteristic  expression,  "  the  general  public 
dividends,  anyhow." 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  never  cornered.  He 
was  too  knowing.  There  were  few  great 
corners  in  his  time,  however,  that  he  did  not 
indirectly,  if  not  directly,  instigate,  and  that 
he  did  not  largely  profit  by.  "I  have  the 
stuff,"  he  would  say  within  his  set ;  "  I  put  it 
up ;  risky  business ;  big  interest ;  see  ?  "  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  never  risked  twenty-five 
cents,  however,  in  any  of  them.  He  merely 
used  "  risky  "  to  crowd  up  his  interest  charges, 
and  only  loaned  where  he  could  not  possibly 
lose. 

Item  the  last :    "When  the  big strike 

was  on,  a  just  one,  with  public  sentiment  be 
hind  it ;  and  when  the  recommendations  of 
the  mutually  acceptable  arbitration  commit- 


232  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

tee,  in  the  strikers'  favor,  were  about  to  be 
acceded  to,  it  was  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's 
secret  threat  so  to  work  the  stock-market  as 
to  ruin  the  concerns  involved,  in  case  they 
granted  the  recommendations,  which  caused 
that  sudden  and  mysterious  suspension  of 
negotiations,  and  occasioned  those  painful  and 
resultless  months  of  the  strike's  continuance, 
which  had  no  satisfactory  outcome  for  any 
body. 

"  Sharp,  why  did  you  do  it  ?  "  asked  one  of 
his  set.  "  Strike  was  just ;  people  were  with 
it;  concerns  might  just  as  well  have  acceded 
as  not;  'twould  have  done  them  good,  like 
trimming  an  apple-tree ;  besides,  their  product 
did  not  affect  your  specialties  in  the  least." 

"  I  did  it  on  principle,"  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
angrily  retorted.  "That  sort  of  course, 
though  it  was  no  direct  concern  of  mine, 
would  have  been  one  way  of  helping  to  pull 
down  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  society  over 
our  heads." 

But  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  gave.  When  he 
had  schemed  in  a  million,  by  effecting  some  con 
solidation,  by  stock  watering,  by  adding  to  the 
price  of  this  or  that  staple  and  indispensable 


Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  233 

commodity,  or  by  some  similar  stroke  of  eco 
nomic  "  sagacity," — he  would  donate  ten  thou 
sand  to  a  hospital.  When  it  was  three  million, 
and  a  transaction  liable  to  be  sharply  criti 
cized,  he  would  put  fifty  thousand  into  a  new 
town  hall  for  his  native  village  in  Maine.  Ten 
million  "absorbed"  sometimes  meant  a  hun 
dred  thousand  for  one  or  two  technical  schools. 
All  this  attracted  attention.  It  operated  like 
what  the  old  Hebrew  patriots  plainly  called  a 
gift  to  blind  the  ruler's  eyes.  For  only  that 
side  of  his  life,  by  reason  of  his  benefactions, 
caught  the  public  gaze.  His  donations  occa 
sioned  his  being  interviewed,  written  up,  de 
picted  in  the  magazines ;  and,  by  degrees, 
caused  him  to  think  himself,  as  other  people 
thought  him,  a  benefactor  of  the  human  race. 
Such  was  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  a  conspicu 
ous  and  typical  product  of  civilization  and  of 
religion  down  to  date.  To  render  possible 
such  as  he,  martyrs  had  bled ;  patriots  had 
fallen  on  crimson  fields  the  names  of  which 
are  the  synonyms  of  liberty;  and  the  whole 
heroic  and  much-suffering  army  of  discoverers, 
explorers,  pioneers,  inventors,  educators,  art 
ists,  statesmen,  poets  and  seers, — not  to  speak 


234          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

of  the  other  measurelessly  larger  and  equally 
heroic  and  much-suffering  army,  that  of  the 
plain  toilers  of  all  times,— had  endured  and 
died. 


XV 


HIS  BLANK  WALL 

ETEK  WAINWKIGHT 
did  not  marry  Miss 
Eugenie  Sharp,  but  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  got 
his  thirty  shares  of  the 
Annie  Laurie  stock. 
Peter  deemed  it  a  mere 
incident,  not  thought 
of  by  his  prospective 
father-in-law  twice. 
Peter  did  not  know  his 
man.  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  never  did  business  that  way.  Before 
he  invested,  he  looked  up  John  Hope,  and 
learned  of  his  electrical  invention,  and  the 
sale  of  its  patent.  So  far  from  thinking  that 
any  wrong  had  been  done  to  John  in  the 
transaction,  he  thought  that  the  electrical 
company  had  been  very  liberal  with  him,  and 

that  the    boy  John's   getting  ten  thousand 
235 


236          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

dollars  from  it  betokened  business  precocity. 
He  searched  out,  too,  his  academy  and  college 
record,  and  his  notable  business  career  since. 
"  There,"  he  said,  "  is  a  young  man  among  a 
thousand ;  the  sort  of  young  blood  that  I  must 
absorb."  "Absorb"  was  one  of  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp's  talismanic  words. 

He  also  looked  up  Duncan  McLeod,  in  Scot 
land,  Australia,  South  Africa  and  Colorado. 
He  was  equally  pleased  with  Duncan.  "  If  I 
can  yoke  in  those  two  young  fellows,"  he  said, 
as  if  he  had  discovered  the  Kohinur  diamond, 
— "  John  Hope  for  combines,  and  Duncan  Mc 
Leod  for  mining, — I  '11  *  do '  the  Kocky  Moun 
tains.  Good  thing  for  the  young  men,  too; 
give  them  twenty-five  thousand  a  year ;  make 
three  hundred  millions  before  we  're  through." 

When  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  got  well  run 
ning,  and  large  dividends  were  coming  in,  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  had  John  Hope  to  dinner. 
Mrs.  Eugenie,  his  daughter,  chanced  to  be 
visiting  at  home.  Beside  her  sat  a  little,  sad- 
eyed,  but  beautiful  girl  of  perhaps  three  years. 
John  and  the  mother  looked  across  the  table 
full  into  each  other's  eyes  once,  and  were  loth 
to  do  so  again.  It  was  too  painful  for  them 


His  Blank  Wall  237 

both.  For  John  was  Peter  Wainwright's  col 
lege  chum,  who  knew  his  heart's  history ;  and 
Mrs.  Eugenie  had  another  patronymic  than 
Peter's,  and  a  wound  that  never  would  heal. 

After  dinner,  in  his  den,  while  he  blew  cir 
cles  of  cigar  smoke  up  toward  the  ceiling,  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  said : 

"Now  I  want  you,  Mr.  Hope,  to  put  in 
some  good,  cheap  man  in  Mr.  McLeod's  place, 
and  send  Mr.  McLeod  out  in  search  of  choice 
mining  locations.  He  '11  find  them,  as  a  witch- 
hazel  stick  finds  water.  Be  very  particular  to 
have  him  keep  shady ;  instruct  him  to  get 
options  where  necessary  ;  but  make  it,  as  far 
as  possible,  a  still  hunt.  Meantime,  I  want 
you  to  put  in  some  good,  cheap  man  in  your 
place  to  look  after  details,  especially  those  at 
the  mine ;  and  I  want  you  to  spend  the  bulk 
of  your  time  in  New  York,  and  to  exploit  the 
whole  subject  of  Colorado  mining  among  cer 
tain  men,  a  list  of  whom  I  can  give  you,  and 
also  among  others,  whom  this  acquaintance 
will  bring  you  to  know.  A  still  hunt,  as  I 
said,  in  all  this,  too.  When  we  are  ready  to 
spring  our  plan,  I  can  easily  find  a  hundred 
millions,  or  two  hundred  if  necessary,  or  what- 


238          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ever  amount  we  may  need  ;  we  can  corral  all 
the  desirable  mining  locations  not  already 
spoken  for  ;  and,  managing  right,  we  can  hold 
the  balance  of  power  as  regards  the  precious 
metals  in  all  that  country. 

"  And  now,  a  point  I  want  you  specially  to 
think  of.  I'll  give  you  both  large  salaries. 
I  'm  not  so  young  as  I  was  once.  If  you  and 
Mr.  McLeod  pan  out,  as  I  think  you  will,  I  '11 
do  very  handsomely  by  you,  and  increasingly 
so,  from  year  to  year ;  and  I  '11  do  even  better 
things  as  I  begin  to  let  go." 

All  this  was,  if  possible,  a  harder  thing  for 
John  Hope  than  the  look  into  Mrs.  Eugenie's 
eyes.  That  was  a  tragedy  already  in  its  fifth 
act ;  here  were  countless  tragedies  beginning 
to  be  plotted. 

But  not  a  muscle  of  John  Hope's  face 
changed.  He  sat  serenely  calm.  He  was  too 
wise  to  reveal  his  thought.  After  a  moment's 
silence,  fixing  his  eyes  steadily  on  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp,  and  thanking  him  for  his  gener 
ous  thought  for  himself  and  his  friend,  he 
began  a  detailed,  admirably  illustrated  and 
intensely  interesting  argument,  which,  by  slow 
degrees,  brought  out  the  point  conclusively, 


His  Blank  Wall  239 

that  the  mine  could  not,  at  present,  without 
heavy  sacrifice,  dispense  either  with  Duncan 
McLeod's  constant  presence,  or  with  his  own 
for  much  of  the  time. 

This  persuasion  of  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  did 
not  last  over  night.  A  heated  interview  oc 
curred  the  next  day.  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
assailed,  and  largely  overthrew,  to  his  own 
mind,  John  Hope's  objections,  and  maintained 
that  the  one  sensible  thing  for  him  and  Duncan 
McLeod  to  do,  was  to  fall  immediately  in  with 
his  plan,  and  begin,  what  seemed  to  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp,  the  very  small  contract  of  corral 
ling,  by  the  use  of  from  one  to  two  hundred 
millions,  all  the  choice  obtainable  gold  and 
silver  properties  in  Colorado ;  of  erecting 
them  into  a  vast  mining  combination ;  of 
themselves  becoming  the  chief  magnates 
therein,  on  huge  salaries,  with  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  the  power  behind  the  throne,  and  with 
these  two  young  men  the  persons  who  might 
hope  eventually  to  be  the  continuators  of  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp's  mighty  captaincy  of  fi 
nance,  not  only  in  this  new  field,  but  in  many 
another.  "  I  tell  you,"  he  concluded,  rubbing 
his  hands,  "  follow  me,  and  you  11  absorb  a 


240          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

billion  betwixt  you  before  you're  my  age. 
Steel  ain't  in  it,  mark  my  word." 

John  Hope  never  appeared  to  better  ad 
vantage.  He  was  reserved,  gentle,  modest, 
and  indicated,  so  far  as  he  sincerely  could,  his 
appreciation,  on  his  own  and  on  his  friend's 
behalf,  of  the  flattering  proposition.  He 
planted  himself,  however,  inflexibly  upon  the 
difficulties  in  the  case,  including  the  smallness 
of  the  areas  of  mineral  land  that  could,  under 
mining  laws,  be  acquired,  although  admitting 
that  these  might  be  indefinitely  multiplied 
under  successive  claims ;  and,  with  singular 
clearness,  comprehensiveness  of  knowledge 
and  point  of  view,  and  depth  of  insight,  dem 
onstrated  the  disadvantages  of  a  vast  combi 
nation  for  such  work.  When,  however,  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp,  almost  maddened  by  the 
very  force  of  John's  reasoning,  still  insisted, 
and  assumed  a  threatening  attitude,  John 
drew  himself  calmly  up,  gazed  unflinchingly 
into  his  eyes,  and  courteously  but  flatly  re 
fused  to  be  a  party  to  any  such  proposition. 

It  was  two  days  later  that  the  meeting  of 
stockholders  was  held,  after  the  explosion  at 
the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  when  the  last  ten 


His  Blank  Wall  241 

shares  of  its  stock  were  voted  Duncan  McLeod 
for  services  rendered. 

While  this  proposal  was  under  debate,  John 
Hope  was  subjected  to  a  speech  that  tried  him 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  words  he  had  ever 
heard  in  his  life. 

"  I  am,"  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  said,  "  in 
favor  of  the  proposition  of  voting  these  shares 
to  Mr.  McLeod.  But  I  am  in  favor  of  it  for 
altogether  different  reasons  from  those  which 
seem  to  actuate  you  gentlemen.  I  am  not  in 
favor  of  concessions  of  this  sort  to  employees, 
or  of  coddling,  in  any  manner,  the  employed 
class.  It  is  only  beginning  to  pull  down  the 
whole  fabric  of  modern  society  over  our 
heads.  Nevertheless,  I  think  these  shares 
should  be  voted  purely  as  a  matter  of  business 
good  sense.  I  believe  that  something  of  this  sort 
must  be  done  or  we  shall  lose  Mr.  McLeod. 
Advices  which  I  have  received  from  Cripple 
Creek  indicate  that  Mr.  John  Hays  Ham 
mond,  the  South  African  expert,  who  knew 
Mr.  McLeod  there,  has  advised  one  of  the 
heaviest  mines  at  Cripple  Creek  to  employ 
him  on  a  very  large  salary.  If  the  proposi 
tion  is  made  in  that  shape  to  Mr.  McLeod,  we 
16 


242  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

shall  surely  lose  him,  and,  for  the  sake  of  re 
taining  him,  I  believe  that  we  are  putting 
money  into  our  pockets  by  giving  him  these 
shares,  and  in  this  way  binding  him  to  us. 

"Permit  me  to  add,  Mr.  Chairman,  my 
judgment,  that  if  we  should  lose  Mr.  McLeod 
we  should  lose  almost  the  whole  thing.  I 
cannot  figure  it  any  other  way  than  that  our 
president  is  of  little  more  value  to  us  than  an 
errand  boy.  I  had  great  hopes  of  him  for  en 
larging  our  business  in  many  respects :  but  he 
stoutly  refuses  to  entertain  certain  most  ad 
vantageous  suggestions,  looking  in  this  direc 
tion,  which  I  have  offered  him ;  and,  as  I  have 
pondered  the  whole  subject,  I  am  inclined  to 
think  him  hardly  more  than  a  supernumerary. 
The  president  of  a  mine  such  as  ours,  of  the 
record  of  the  gentleman  in  the  chair,  who  can 
let  the  local  interests  of  the  business  so  en 
gross  his  mind  that  he  cannot  see  its  larger 
bearings  is  fast  bordering  on  degeneration. 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  as  a  means  of  retaining  our 
only  highly  valuable  man,  whom  we  are  in 
danger  of  losing,  I  hope  the  motion  will  pass, 
and  believe  that,  by  its  passing,  we  shall — 
though  in  itself  it  is  an  absurdly  generous  act, 


His  Blank  Wall  243 

and  very  bad  as  a  precedent — put  money  into 
our  own  pockets." 

John  Hope,  who  was  in  the  chair,  listened 
to  this  insulting  speech  without  changing 
color,  or  altering  the  position  of  a  line  in  his 
face.  He  immediately  put  the  motion.  It 
was  unanimously  carried.  In  fact,  he  so  bore 
himself  that  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  deemed 
that  his  judgment  that  John  Hope  was  begin 
ning  to  degenerate,  had  received  substantial 
confirmation.  In  mentioning  the  incident 
later  to  his  confidential  man,  he  said:  "A 
man  on  whom  a  studied  insult  falls  without 
effect  is  either  a  fool  or  a  knave.  Hope  never 
could  be  a  knave;  but  I  believe  he  is  fast 
going  to  pieces  mentally." 

As  bearing  on  future  developments  of  this 
history,  it  should  here  be  added,  that,  when, 
on  returning  to  Colorado,  John  Hope  told 
Duncan  McLeod  of  the  suggested  Cripple 
Creek  offer, — which  was  strictly  true,  and 
which,  though  its  compensation  was  enormous, 
Duncan  had  instantly  declined,  in  favor  of  his 
Annie  Laurie  work,  and,  characteristically, 
had  never  told  anybody  of  it, — Duncan  looked 
John  straight  in  the  eye,  and  said :  "  Might 


244          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

not  a  stenographer's  notes  have  misled  Mr. 
Sharp?  Should  not  the  name  have  been, 
Dunbar  McLean  ?  He  had  a  great  metallur 
gist's  record  at  Johannesburg  in  my  time,  and 
was  anxious  to  go  to  America."  This  state 
ment  of  a  fact  completely  threw  John  off  the 
scent.  "  I  shudder  to  think,  however,  of  hav 
ing  mentioned  Dunbar  McLean,"  Duncan  at 
once  thought,  but  did  not  say;  "I  would 
as  soon  have  the  bubonic  plague  appear  in  any 
Eocky  Mountain  mining  camp  as  Dunbar 
McLean." 

The  singular  interpretation  of  John  Hope's 
self-command,  above  recorded,  doubtless  had 
much  to  do  with  bringing  about,  after  that 
meeting  of  the  stockholders,  a  comparatively 
unstrained  relation  between  him  and  his  an 
tagonist.  In  fact,  when,  several  months  later, 
John  reached  New  York  for  the  March  meet 
ing,  and  the  two  met,  no  one  would  have 
dreamed  that  their  relations  had  ever  been 
otherwise  than  satisfactory.  It  facilitated  this 
outward  good-will  that  a  winter  of  extraordi 
nary  prosperity  had  marked  the  mine,  and 
that  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was  in  particularly 
good  spirits  over  the  results. 


His  Blank  Wall  245 

When  the  stockholders  met,  a  large  amount 
of  routine  business,  much  of  which  was  very 
interesting,  was  transacted  in  the  smoothest 
possible  manner.  John  Hope  then  reported 
on  the  experimental  profit-sharing ;  exhibited, 
by  means  of  a  chart  drawn  to  scale,  the  in 
creasing  profits  of  the  mine  under  it ;  and,  be 
cause  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  for  the  time  being 
controlled  himself,  seemed  to  be  carrying  all 
the  stockholders  with  him. 

When  the  subject  had  thus  been  laid  before 
the  meeting,  every  man  present,  except  the 
president  and  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  one  after 
another,  in  ringing  speeches,  advocated  the 
profit-sharing  proposal,  and  the  appointment 
of  a  committee  from  the  stockholders  to  con 
fer  with  a  committee  from  the  miners  about 
formulating  a  plan  by  which  a  portion  of  the 
ownership  and  direction  of  the  mine  might  be 
vested  in  the  men.  When  all  but  himself  and 
the  president  had  spoken,  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp,  who  had  maintained  entire  reticence, 
rose  to  speak  to  the  question. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  began,  "  it  has  been  very 
hard  for  me  to  listen  to  the  president's  account 
of  the  absurd  experiment  which  has  been  tried 


246          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  and  to  your  hot 
headed  advocacy  of  the  most  foolish  scheme 
that  I  ever  heard  rational  men  propose.  The 
president's  own  showing  is  ridiculous.  He  and 
the  head  assayer  have  been  getting  up  one  of 
those  exciting  religious  revivals  in  the  camp. 
Somehow  they  have  hypnotized  the  men. 
They  have  coddled  and  hobnobbed  with  them, 
and  then,  suddenly,  from  somebody's  pocket 
that  must  be  very  full,  they  have  been  making 
them  handsome  cash  presents  week  by  week. 
You  know,  and  everybody  knows,  how  this  sort 
of  thing  could  not  but  affect  men,  especially  in 
the  peculiar  conditions  of  isolation  which  mark 
our  camp.  The  statistics  of  the  president,  the 
chart  he  has  exhibited,  and  the  poetry  he  has 
been  giving  us  about  the  men,  cut  no  figure 
whatever. 

"  Going  into  the  merits  of  the  case,  such  a 
proposition  is  inimical  to  the  whole  fabric  of 
modern  society.  There  always  has  been,  and 
there  always  will  be,  a  small,  wealthy,  ruling 
class.  There  always  has  been,  and  there  al 
ways  will  be,  a  large  majority  of  the  human 
race,  toilers,  ruled,  dependent.  Their  ig 
norance,  their  indolence,  their  vices,  and  their 


His  Blank  Wall  247 

more  or  less  depraved  tastes,  will  always  keep 
them  at  such  a  point.  The  idea  of  anything 
different !  Such  a  book,  for  example,  as  Mr. 
Bellamy's  '  Looking  Backward,'  is,  of  course, 
pure  moonshine ;  but  even  the  more  restrained 
programs  which  many  preachers  are  now 
giving  us— Dr.  Gladden,  of  Columbus,  for  in 
stance,  or  my  own  minister — are  the  rankest 
idiocy.  I  can  hardly  contain  myself  seriously 
to  consider  this  proposal.  Why,  d — n  it! 
gentle  " 

John  Hope  was  instantly  on  his  feet.  "  We 
are  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "and  language  of 
that"- 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  being  called  down.  He  had  a  tremendous 
eye,  and  he  simply  glared  at  the  chairman. 
The  chairman,  however,  also  had  an  eye,  and 
he  fixed  it  with  equal  concentration  on  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp.  Silence  that  could  be  felt 
ensued.  The  stockholders  held  on  to  their 
chairs.  Neither  man  winked  for  the  space  of 
two  minutes.  Then  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  fell,  for  he  was  a  wise  enough 
man  to  know  when  he  was  beaten,  and  he 
continued : 


248          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Beg  your  pardon,  gentlemen,  but  I  just 
came  from  an  interview  with  a  hog  man  whose 
conversation  was  interspersed  with  oaths  al 
most  as  incessantly  as  hogs  squeal  at  a  packing 
house."  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  then  resumed  his 
argument,  but  he  was  so  much  shaken  that  any 
one  impartially  watching  him  might  have  sup 
posed  that  the  process  of  degeneration  had  be 
gun  in  him.  As,  thus,  he  made  no  headway 
in  argument,  he  grew  very  angry,  carefully 
confined  himself  to  parliamentary  language, 
but  spoke  with  the  utmost  violence.  He  ut 
tered  heavy  threats,  and  at  length  took  his 
seat  with  a  face  so  flushed  as  to  suggest  im 
pending  apoplexy,  and  with  the  perspiration 
rolling  down  his  cheeks. 

"  Question !  "  was  immediately  called ;  the 
chair  inquired  whether  there  were  any  further 
remarks;  and,  there  being  none,  the  motion 
was  passed.  Another  motion  was  also  imme 
diately  offered,  and  voted,  appointing  John 
Hope  and  Duncan  McLeod  a  committee  of  two, 
on  the  side  of  the  stockholders,  to  confer  with 
a  committee,  of  such  size  as  might  be  deemed 
best,  from  the  miners,  about  some  plan  of 
joint  ownership  and  direction.  When  this 


BONAPARTE   SHARP  S    DEFEAT 


His  Blank  Wall  249 

motion  was  carried,  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table  with  such 
violence  that  a  large  ink-well,  full  to  the  brim, 
and  standing  near  the  edge  of  the  table,  was 
thrown  to  the  floor,  with  its  inevitable  be 
spattering  of  men  and  things.  This  accident 
induced  a  general  laugh,  in  which  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  could  not  help  joining ;  but,  as  he 
left  the  meeting,  which  he  at  once  did,  he  ut 
tered  a  threatening  imprecation,  and  slammed 
the  door  so  hard  as  to  jar  the  entire  room. 

Oblivious,  in  his  rage,  to  the  possible  pres 
ence  of  others,  he  growled  to  himself,  in  an 
undertone,  as  he  swept  along  the  corridor: 
"  That  d — d  calf,  like  a  bunch  of  steers  on  the 
Plains  stopping  the  Golden  Gate  Limited, 
has  n't  known  any  better  than  to  lift  the  first 
blank  wall  that  ever  halted  Bonaparte  Sharp. 
I  '11  smash  it.  I  '11  pulverize  it.  Were  it  not 
bad  form,  I  'd  be  tempted  to  make  a  shambles 
of  him  into  the  bargain." 

On  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  withdrawal  the 
meeting  at  once  adjourned.  The  other  stock 
holders  gathered  around  John  Hope  with 
felicitations.  But  he,  swiftly  excusing  him 
self,  disappeared.  A  grave  look  was  on  his 


250          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

face ;  and,  immediately  going  to  a  telegraph 
office  in  their  building,  he  wrote,  on  pink 
paper,  for  instant  transmission,  a  message  in 
cipher,  which,  fifteen  minutes  later,  Duncan 
McLeod,  twenty-five  hundred  miles  away,  re 
ceived,  and  which,  translated,  read  as  follows : 

"Profit-sharing  indorsed.  Joint  ownership  and  direction 
approved.  McLeod,  Hope,  committee  on  latter,  to  work 
with  Miners'  Committee.  Tell  men.  Let  them  rejoice 
while  they  can.  Confidential :  Seventy  shares  enthusiastic 
ally  favored.  Thirty  shares  insanely  angry.  Not  improb 
ably  would  spend  million  to  down  us.  Trouble,  oceans  of 
it,  doubtless  brewing. " 


XYI 


DILEMMA  AND  PARADOX  OF  LOVE 

OW  love  makes  or  un 
makes  !  And,  in  the 
making  or  unmaking, 
bow  merely  incidental 
is  its  outward  success 
or  failure ! 

At  thirteen  or  four 
teen  Duncan  McLeod 
saw  a  child's  face.  It 
was  fine  in  its  propor 
tions,  delicately  outlined,  and  nobly  beautiful ; 
but  had  it  been  even  a  very  plain  face,  such 
thoughtfulness,  such  quickness  and  intelligence 
of  perception,  such  insight,  and  such  unselfish 
love  lighted  it,  that  it  would  equally  have  won 
him,  bending  there,  all  rapt  and  eager,  over  his 
mother's  Bible. 

The  face  belonged  to  a  daughter  of  wealth. 
Duncan  was  a  poor  widow's  son.     The  mo 
ment  he  thought  of  this,  he  saw  the  tragic 
251 


252          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

side  of  these  so  different  environments,  and, 
bravely  making  his  resolve,  he  never  breathed 
his  secret  to  a  human  being,  not  even  to  his 
mother.  But  that  face,  joining  with  the  boy's 
deep  religious  impulse,  made  the  man.  It  was 
with  him  like  a  vision  until  far  on  in  his  uni 
versity  career,  the  key  to  his  honors  and 
triumphs  at  the  Stirling  high  school  and  at 
Edinburgh.  Then  Henry  Drummond,  a  lone 
man,  in  order,  as  Duncan  assumed,  yet  more 
completely  to  serve  Jesus  Christ,  gave  him  a 
fresh  ideal ;  and,  passionately  absorbed  thence 
forth  in  doing  for  his  Master,  he  succeeded, 
at  length,  in  banishing  Kathleen  Gordon's 
face. 

After  great  years  in  Scotland,  in  Australia, 
in  South  Africa  and  in  Colorado,  an  act  of 
heroism,  that  nearly  cost  him  his  life,  brought 
back  the  vision.  He  was  not  disobedient  unto 
it.  He  spoke;  he  was  denied;  but  he  was 
denied,  as  he  instantly  perceived,  against 
Kathleen's  heart  pleadings,  and  on  the  ground 
alone  of  outward  duties  ;  of,  in  short,  conduct, 
— the  very  foundation  upon  which  he  had 
builded  all  his  own  maturer  life.  In  that 
awful  crisis, — for  Kathleen's  letter  in  reply 


Dilemma  and  Paradox  of  Love    253 

had  made  his  further  suit  impossible, — when, 
in  consequence  at  once  of  the  denial  and  its 
ground,  the  solid  earth  seemed  gone  from  be 
neath  him,  and  the  flaming  stars  from  above 
him,  and  himself  seemed  to  be  dissolved  into  a 
flitting  shade,  there  broke  upon  him,  after 
certain  fierce  preliminary  struggles,  a  sense,  as 
if  apocalyptic,  of  the  emptiness  of  outward 
deeds,  however  heroic  and  noble,  and  of  the 
valuelessness  of  all  things  else  but  love, — love 
toward  God,  love  toward  love,  and  love 
toward  men.  He  of  Patmos  had  not  a  clearer 
revelation. 

Thus  Duncan  McLeod  was  once  more  born 
again,  for  he  had  lived  in  deeds  before.  Love 
regenerated  him.  In  that  new  life  which  en 
sued,  the  hero  of  the  Annie  Laurie  mining 
camp,  admired  almost  inordinately,  and  fol 
lowed  passionately,  became,  over  and  above 
all  that  he  was  before,  another  St.  John,  calm, 
tender,  winning,  a  resistless  loadstone  of  char 
acter  and  of  the  Christed  life. 

Until  Kathleen  Gordon  shall  herself  speak, 
we,  like  Duncan,  may  not  know  what  is  going 
on  in  her  soul.  When  that  time  comes,  how 
ever,  if  it  comes  at  all,  it  will  be  strange  if  her 


254          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

experience  does  not  prove  to  have  paralleled 
his.  For  they  serve  the  same  Master.  They 
have  the  single  eye.  Those  that  follow  him, 
he  promises,  shall  not  walk  in  darkness ;  their 
whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light. 

Love  is  for  Christ,  and  Christ  is  for  love. 
They  are  the  foci  of  the  ellipse  in  which  the 
soul  moves.  Christ  regenerates ;  love  regen 
erates.  Deeds,  though  priceless  as  expressions 
of  love,  are  emptiness  and  less  than  nothing, 
except  for  Christ  and  love.  Even  In  His 
Steps  we  walk  but  as  slaves  and  vagabonds, 
save  as,  at  the  same  time,  we  walk  In  His 
Light.  "  Covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts  :  and 
yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more  excellent  way," 
writes  St.  Paul ;  and,  in  indicating  that  way, 
bursts  forth  into  nothing  other  or  less  than 
the  thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians. 
For, "  Love  is  of  God."  "  Every  one  that  loveth 
is  born  of  God,  and  knoweth  God."  "  God  is 
light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all." 

But  if  love,  though  outwardly  unsuccessful, 
made  Duncan  McLeod  and  Kathleen  Gordon, 
it,  outwardly  also  unsuccessful,  unmade  Peter 
Wainwright  and  Eugenie  Sharp  ;  and  unmade, 
also,  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  and  several  hun- 


Dilemma  and  Paradox  of  Love    255 

dred  lives  inseparably  bound  up  in  the  mate 
rial,  the  moral,  and  the  spiritual  significance 
that,  under  the  lead  of  Duncan  McLeod  and 
John  Hope,  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  had  at 
tained. 

To  trace  how  love  unmade  these  two  would 
require  a  volume  ;  a  volume,  be  it  added,  of  a 
sad  but  fascinating  interest.  A  few  para 
graphs  must  here  suffice. 

Had  Eugenie  Sharp's  love  for  Peter  "Wain- 
wright  been  yet  deeper,  and  had  it  been  joined 
with  a  consuming  love  for  Jesus  Christ,  the 
great  wedding  at  the  "  truly  baronial "  lodge 
in  the  Adirondacks  would  not  have  occurred, 
unless  Peter  Wainwright  had  said  the  re 
sponses  with  her.  But  though  Eugenie's  love 
for  Peter  was  sincere  and  strong, — so  sincere 
and  strong  that  the  violence  she  did  it  finally 
killed  her, — it  had  not,  as  she  had  not,  the 
single  eye.  The  pageant  of  wealth  and  of 
society  commanded  her, — less,  indeed,  than  her 
love  for  Peter,  but  with  a  divided  allegiance. 
The  passion  of  loving,  too,  was  strong  within 
her,  as  was  right ;  but,  in  her  thinking, — for  it 
is  the  pure  in  heart  that  alone  see  God, — she 
had  suffered  herself  to  disunite  and  to  make 


256          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

two  what  God  meant  should  be  one,  the  pas 
sion  of  loving  and  loving  itself. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  three  distinct  forces 
were  in  the  field  without  the  single  eye  justly 
to  coordinate  them.  Mr.  Multi-millionaire 
represented  to  her,  for  the  time, — and  he  was 
not  a  bad  man, — the  pageant  of  wealth  and 
of  society,  and  also  the  passion  of  loving; 
whereas  Peter  Wainwright,  under  her  father's 
prohibition,  only  represented  loving.  Accord 
ingly  it  happened  that,  in  the  balloting  of 
those  brief  and  feverish  weeks,  pageant  and 
passion  outvoted  loving,  with  that  poor,  dis 
tracted,  heartbreaking  and  yet  heartburning 
young  woman,  though  it  was  virgin  voices 
that  said  the  responses ;  and  only  after  her 
child,  sad-eyed  but  beautiful,  lay  crooning  in 
her  arms,  did  she  make  the  dreadful  discovery 
that  it  was  the  popular  vote  alone  that  had 
won,  while  the  electoral  college  had  lost.  Be 
it  said,  however,  to  her  everlasting  honor,  the 
enduring  jewel  in  her  crown,  that  she  kept 
her  plighted  troth, — kept  it  and  died. 

How,  on  the  other  hand,  did  Peter  Wain 
wright,  who  had  been  such  in  character  that 
he  had  been  John  Hope's  chosen  and  bosom 


Dilemma  and  Paradox  of  Love    257 

friend,  bear  himself  in  his  great  trial  ?  He  so 
bore  himself  that  he  almost  broke  John  Hope's 
heart.  For  to  see  one's  dearest  friend,  in 
whom  one  has  reposed  implicit  confidence, 
falter  and  fail  at  life's  crisis,  is  little  short  of 
tragedy. 

Peter  Wain  Wright's  pride  was  hurt, — inevi 
tably,  properly,  but  disproportionately  to  the 
many  other  considerations  involved.  Scrupu 
lously  upright,  too,  though  Peter  "Wainwright 
was,  he  made  the  same  mistake  that  Eugenie 
Sharp  made,  of  disuniting  in  his  thinking  the 
passion  of  loving  and  loving  itself,  and  fierce 
fires  burned  within  him.  So  when  Miss  Marie 
Stone,  daughter  to  him  of  the  rival  yacht, 
clapped  her  small  hands  on  reading  a  note 
from  a  friend  which  said  that  Peter  "Wain- 
wright's  engagement  had  been  broken,  and  set 
her  thin,  firm  lips  in  a  silent  vow  that  she 
would  marry  him,  he  passed  unwittingly,  but 
also  ill-defended,  into  the  category  of  "  the 
hunted."  In  his  pride  and  his  passion  he 
stilled  the  deeper  voice.  John  Hope's  expos 
tulations  fell  on  dull  ears.  The  life-oppor 
tunity  to  wait,  after  a  love  that  had  proved 
itself  inadequate,  for  one  that,  God  willing, 
'7 


258          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

should  prove  adequate ;  and  the  life-oppor 
tunity,  while  he  waited,  to  develop  in  himself 
larger  living,  and  larger  capacity  for  loving, — 
he  despised,  as  did  Esau  his  birthright,  and  on 
the  same  principle.  Consequently,  the  same 
week  that  the  events  at  the  "  truly  baronial " 
lodge  in  the  Adirondacks  were  the  u  feature  " 
of  the  New  York  papers,  a  quieter  but  elegant 
wedding, — for  Miss  Marie  Stone  had  sense  of 
a  certain  sort,  whatever  else  she  lacked, — was 
recorded  at  considerable  length,  and  in  far 
better  taste,  in  the  same  journals.  It  occurred 
at  Newport ;  the  two  passed  the  remainder  of 
the  summer  in  Europe  ;  and,  in  October,  Peter 
Wain wright,  goaded  on  ever  by  Marie,  put  his 
nose  on  the  monetary  grindstone,  where  it  has 
remained  unto  this  day.  "  Whatever  you  do, 
or  don't  do,  Peter,"  she  would  say,  "get 
money,  and  keep  it.  If  we  manage  rightly, 
we  shall  be  able  to  buy  out  Eugenie's  husband 
before  we  are  done." 

Peter  and  Marie  were  childless.  Little  love 
was  lost  between  them.  Existence  became 
swiftly,  for  both  of  them,  a  scheme  of  con 
quest, — conquest  pecuniarily,  conquest  socially, 
conquest  in  the  range  of  several  collateral  am- 


Dilemma  and  Paradox  of  Love    259 

bitions, — Marie's,  in  literature ;  Peter's,  in  art 
and  music ;  that  of  both,  to  be  able  to  as 
semble  distinguished  people  at  their  various 
residences  and  social  functions.  They  both 
adhered  to  outward  uprightness.  Marie,  how 
ever,  never  had  ideals;  and  Peter,  who  had 
had  them,  violated  them  more  and  more  as  his 
career  went  on.  Had  any  one  told  him,  for 
example,  the  week  before  his  engagement 
to  Eugenie  Sharp  was  broken,  that  for  the 
sake  of  money  he  would  betray  his  and  John 
Hope's  ideals  for  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  he 
would  have  resented  the  assertion  as  libel- 
ous.  Within  three  or  four  years,  however, 
while  he  had  still  a  scruple,  the  scruple  was 
not  about  his  earlier  ideals  for  the  mine,  but 
about  the  wound  it  would  inflict  on  John 
Hope.  In  short,  love,  in  its  failure,  and  in 
its  fickle  substitution  of  formal  success  for 
failure,  while  it  left  Peter  Wainwright  an  out 
wardly  upright  man,  undid  all  that  had  made 
John  Hope  his  friend,  and  that  was  noblest  in 
him. 

Love,  then,  presents  this  twofold  dilemma : 
It  makes  or  unmakes ;  and  it  must  choose  be 
tween  putting  asunder  and  holding  as  one 


260          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  which  God  hath  joined  together,  namely, 
the  passion  of  loving  and  loving  itself. 

And  this  is  the  paradox  of  love :  Holding 
these  two  as  one,  its  outward  success  or 
failure  is  but  an  incident;  it  makes,  in  any 
case,  and  can  nowise  unmake  or  be  unmade. 


XVII 

BONAPARTE     SHABP     SMASHES     HIS     BLANK 
WALL 


,KOM  the  moment  that 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
uttered  his  imprecation, 
and  shut  the  door  on 
the  Annie  Laurie  stock 
holders  with  a  crash, 
he  had  but  one  supreme 
purpose.  It  was  with 
him  day  and  night. 
He  thought  of  it  wak 
ing,  and  dreamed  of  it  sleeping.  It  so  ab 
sorbed  him  that  it  interfered  to  some  extent 
with  his  ordinary  complete  concentration  on 
business  in  business  hours.  That  purpose  was 
to  acquire  control  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine ; 
to  humiliate  John  Hope  and  his  coadjutors, 
chief  among  whom,  he  now  perceived,  was 

Duncan  McLeod ;  and  to  reverse,  in  a  monu- 
261 


262  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

mental  way,  all  that  for  which  the  mine  had 
come  conspicuously  to  stand. 

As  the  mine  was  not  intended  for  the  stock 
market,  but  to  be  a  conservative  and  perma 
nent  industry,  John  Hope  had  organized  it 
with  only  a  hundred  shares.  There  had  been 
put  into  it  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars.  After  that  it  and  its  plant  had 
been  steadily  improved  out  of  its  surplus 
earnings.  Thus  the  hundred  shares  had  a 
face  value  reckoned  at  twenty -five  hundred 
dollars  each,  but  their  actual  value  was  more 
than  thrice  that  amount. 

The  hundred  shares  were  held,  thirty  by 
John  Hope,  thirty  by  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp, 
twenty  by  Peter  Wainwright,  ten  by  Duncan 
McLeod,  and  five  each  by  Hugh  MacDonald 
and  Theodore  Wilson.  Hugh  MacDonald  and 
Theodore  Wilson,  as  well  as  Peter  Wain- 
w right,  were  college  classmates  of  John  Hope, 
and  all  three  of  them,  when  they  entered  the 
company,  were  men  after  his  own  heart. 
Hugh  and  Theodore  remained  so.  Hugh  was 
a  person  of  wealth.  He  was  very  conserva 
tive  in  his  business  methods.  He  gave  much 
of  his  time  and  strength  to  certain  altruistic 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     263 

enterprises  in  his  native  city  of  New  York. 
Theodore  was  a  brilliant  and  virile  scholar, 
rapidly  making  a  reputation  as  an  inspiring 
teacher.  He  had  little  money,  but  John 
Hope  was  so  fond  of  him,  that  he  put  him  in 
the  way  of  acquiring  and  gradually  paying 
for  his  five  shares  in  the  mine.  At  the  time 
when  this  history  encounters  him,  these  shares 
were  entirely  paid  for. 

When  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  took  account  of 
the  stockholders,  he  perceived  that  Hope, 
McLeod,  MacDonald  and  Wilson  were  of  the 
old  guard,  and  held  fifty  of  the  shares ;  that 
the  holders  of  the  other  fifty  were  Wain- 
wright  and  himself;  that  he  would  have  a 
hard  tussle  with  Wainwright  because  of  the 
"truly  baronial"  lodge  incident;  and  that, 
even  if  he  won  with  him,  he  would  still 
control  only  one-half  of  the  stock.  "  It  looks 
rocky,"  he  said,  and  the  problem  seemed  so 
difficult  of  solution  that  he  lost  sleep  and  lost 
flesh  worrying  over  it. 

John  Hope  returned  to  Colorado  within 
a  week  after  the  stockholders'  meeting  of 
March  1,  much  sooner  than  he  had  intended, 
in  order  to  intrench  his  work  there  before  the 


264          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

battle,  which  he  knew  was  sure  to  come, 
should  begin.  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  had  him 
shadowed ;  knew  the  day  and  the  train  of  his 
departure ;  and,  the  second  evening  there 
after,  when  John  Hope  would  be  beyond  the 
Missouri  Kiver,  saw,  in  an  afternoon  paper, 
an  account  of  the  sudden  death,  from  pneu 
monia,  of  Theodore  Wilson.  Theodore  had 
been  overworking  with  his  pupils ;  a  cutting 
March  wind  to  which  he  had  been  exposed 
had  sent  him  to  bed ;  he  had  died  that  after 
noon. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was  alone  in  his  den. 
He  dropped  his  paper  and  rubbed  his  hands 
with  glee.  Then,  as  it  grew  upon  him,  he 
danced  around  the  room.  Then  he  said,  "  You 
fool ! " — but  he  did  not  use  those  words  in 
their  adequate  sense.  Then  he  rushed  into  the 
next  room,  and  rang  for  his  carriage, — his 
hurry-up  ring, — and,  in  ten  minutes,  was  rat 
tling  over  the  pavements  toward  a  door  with 
crape  on  it.  "  Must  fix  it,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"  before  John  Hope  sees  to-morrow  morning's 
Denver  papers.  Associated  Press  will  wire  it ; 
it  will  not  escape  his  eyes;  he'll  write  her, 
which  will  be  all  right ;  but  what  if  he  wires 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall      265 

her  condolences,  and  a  judicious  caution  ? " 
Then  he  dropped  the  window,  put  his  head 
out  of  it,  and  cried,  "  Hurry  up,  William !  " 

Mrs.  Wilson  received  a  call  which  she 
looked  back  to  as  of  inexpressible  helpfulness 
until  the  trouble  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine 
broke.  It  was  brief,  tender,  consolatory. 
Here  and  there,  at  intervals  during  it,  occurred 
these  sentences :  "  I  knew  Mr.  Wilson  well  in 
our  stockholders'  meetings."  "Let  me  help, 
any  way  I  can."  "My  carriages  will  be  at 
your  disposal  for  the  funeral."  "  You  will  be 
having  heavy  expenses.  Your  husband's  Annie 
Laurie  stock  stood  for  some  twelve  or  thirteen 
thousand  dollars.  If  it  will  help  you  any,  I 
will  gladly  send  you  my  check  to-morrow 
morning  for  twenty-five  thousand.  We  must 
help  one  another  at  such  a  time."  This  meant, 
what  she  longed  for,  but  supposed  would  be 
impossible,  that  the  burial  might  be  in  Green 
wood  ;  that  the  lot  might  be  an  eligible  one ; 
that  a  suitable  monument  might  mark  tho 
spot ;  and  that,  combining  the  check  with  her 
husband's  life  insurance,  she  and  her  boy 
Theodore  would  have  a  modest  competency. 
She  could  not  speak.  She  pressed  Mr.  Bona- 


266          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

parte  Sharp's  hand  with  a  fervor  of  thankful 
ness  that  almost  shamed  even  him. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  rightly  conjectured 
that  John  Hope  would  see  the  item  about 
Theodore  Wilson's  death  in  the  Denver  papers 
the  next  morning.  It  came  to  John  as  a  per 
sonal  affliction.  He  instantly  telegraphed  his 
sympathy,  and  then  wrote  Mrs.  "Wilson  a  let 
ter  which  she  treasures  to  this  day.  He  de 
bated  with  himself  whether  he  would  not  turn 
back  for  the  funeral ;  but  did  not  do  so  from 
the  fear  that  this  would  delay  interment,  and 
thus  unduly  prolong  the  strain  which  Mrs. 
"Wilson  was  undergoing.  After  the  hour's 
delay  in  Denver,  accordingly,  he  pushed  on 
with  the  trans-continental  mail ;  but  first  ar 
ranged  that,  an  hour  later,  five  hundred  dol 
lars  should  be  transferred  to  Mrs.  Wilson  by 
telegraph  as  his  act  of  respect  to  a  memory 
that  was  to  him  unspeakably  precious.  He 
thought,  and  so  did  Hugh  MacDonald,  of  the 
peril  of  some  sharp  practice  by  the  captain  of 
finance ;  but  he  said  to  himself,  as  Hugh  did, 
"  He  will  not  be  so  indecent  as  to  approach 
her  on  the  subject  until  after  the  funeral." 

But  when  Hugh  MacDonald  came  in  that 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     267 

forenoon,  as  he  had  been  in  repeatedly  on 
the  day  of  the  death,  Mrs.  Wilson  showed  him, 
with  an  emotion  of  gratitude  she  could  scarcely 
control,  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  check,  and  said 
that  she  had  sent  back  the  certificate  of  stock 
by  the  messenger  who  had  brought  the  check. 
"  It  was  such  a  kind  act ! "  she  continued. 
"How  could  one,  so  much  a  stranger,  have 
been  so  considerate  ?  I  shall  never  forget  it, 

so  long  as  " but  here  she  burst  into  tears. 

Hugh  MacDonald  will  never  forget  that 
hour.  He  had  himself  intended  offering  her 
forty  thousand  dollars,  if  she  cared  to  part 
with  her  stock,  so  soon  as  it  seemed  decent  to 
broach  the  subject  to  her.  That  appeared  to 
him  a  fair  valuation,  and  he  had  had  no  little 
satisfaction  in  thinking  how  comfortable  the 
sum  would  make  her  and  her  boy,  besides  in 
suring  such  use  of  the  stock's  voting  power  as 
Theodore  would  have  desired.  He  could  say 
nothing  at  this  spectacle  of  tender  gratitude 
for  what  seemed  to  him  the  act  of  a  fiend. 
As  he  went  down  the  steps  when  he  had  bid 
den  her  adieu,  he  whispered  to  himself :  "  Oh, 
if  Theodore  had  told  her  of  the  scene  at  the 
March  meeting!  But  Theodore  was  charity 


268          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

incarnate,  and  I  suppose  that  he  sealed  his 
lips ! " 

Peter  Wainwright  sealed  his  lips  about  the 
March  meeting,  but  for  a  far  different  reason. 
He  feared,  if  he  opened  them,  that  Marie 
would  drive  him  into  some  deal  with  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp.  He  had  done  violence  to 
his  ideals  so  long,  that  he  had  no  scruples 
against  such  a  deal  from  that  point  of  view  ; 
but  he  did  not  regard  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
with  affection,  and  he  would  not  willingly 
give  John  Hope  pain.  After  several  days  and 
nights  of  badgering,  however,  Marie,  whose 
suspicions  were  aroused  by  Peter's  reticence, 
succeeded  in  prying  his  lips  open.  "  There 's 
money  in  that,  Peter !  "  she  cried,  and  clapped 
her  hands  in  glee.  It  was  at  such  times  that 
Peter,  with  all  his  music  and  his  art,  ques 
tioned  whether  life  were  worth  living. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  did  not  sleep  the  night 
of  his  return  from  Mrs.  Wilson's.  He  was 
too  jubilantly  happy.  When  the  messenger 
returned  to  his  office  the  next  forenoon  with 
Theodore  Wilson's  five  shares  of  Annie  Laurie 
stock,  he  felt  like  kissing  them,  such  was  his 
sense  of  triumph.  "  I  have  thirty-five  now," 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall      269 

he  said,  "  and  Wainwright  has  twenty !  After 
the  annual  meeting,  June  4,  Hope  and  his  fel 
low  idealists,  including  that  idiot,  McLeod, 
and  their  impudent  attempts  to  pull  down  the 
whole  fabric  of  modern  society  over  our 
heads,  will  bite  the  dust ! "  Then  he  sent  a 
long  cablegram  to  Dunbar  McLean  at  Johan 
nesburg.  For  although  Duncan  McLeod,  in 
order  to  conceal  his  having  refused  a  huge 
Cripple  Creek  salary,  had  merely  suggested  to 
John  Hope — contrary  to  the  fact — the  query, 
whether  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  might  not  have 
confused  two  former  Johannesburg  names, 
those  of  McLeod  and  McLean,  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  knew  about  both  the  men,  and  Dunbar 
McLean  was  his  choice,  now  that  Duncan 
McLeod  had  fallen  under  his  disfavor. 

But  the  shoe,  even  yet,  pinched  a  little. 
How  could  he  ask  a  favor  of  Peter  Wain 
wright  ?  How,  on  the  other  hand,  could  he, 
with  self-respect,  coerce  him  a  second  time  ? 
This  worried  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp.  After 
the  cablegram  had  gone,  nevertheless,  he  lost 
not  a  moment  in  beginning  his  campaign, 
and  carried  it  strenuously  forward  for  several 
weeks.  This  campaign  consisted  in  getting 


270          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

various  persuasive  persons  to  approach  Peter 
Wain wright  with  offers,  of  different  dimen 
sions,  and  urged  on  a  variety  of  cogent 
grounds,  to  buy  his  twenty  shares  of  Annie 
Laurie  stock.  Peter  and  Marie  Wainwright 
were  not  lacking  in  penetration.  The  many 
mysterious  offers  to  purchase,  each  one  at  a 
higher  figure  than  the  last,  so  far  from  de 
ceiving  them,  afforded  them  not  only  amuse 
ment,  but  also  no  little  vindictive  delight. 
"  We  '11  make  him  beg !  Is  n't  it  sport  ?  "  said 
Marie. 

In  middle  April  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  cabled 
Dunbar  McLean  to  start  for  New  York  at 
once ;  and,  because  everything  in  the  way  of 
blind  negotiations  had  proved  a  dismal  failure, 
began  operations  in  the  open.  He  went 
straight  to  Peter  Wainwright.  There  was  no 
beating  about  the  bush.  He  offered  him  a 
round  half  million:  for  he  had  reached  the 
point,  as  Peter  and  his  wife  well  knew,  where 
he  must  control  the  mine  at  any  cost ;  and, 
because  of  the  strained  past,  he  had  decided  to 
facilitate  negotiations  by  lavish  offers  of  cash. 
"  Not  enough,"  said  Marie,  on  being  privately 
conferred  with.  After  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     271 

had  crowded  this  offer,  in  a  variety  of  ways, 
for  a  week,  he  proposed  three-quarters  of  a 
million.  "  Take  it  immediately,"  said  Marie. 
But  Peter,  having  scruples  still  on  John 
Hope's  account,  stood  for  a  million,  and 
thereby  walked  into  a  trap.  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  was  furious.  "  I  offered  a  half  million," 
he  said ;  "  five  times  the  rate  I  paid  for  Wil 
son's.  I  even  added  a  half  to  that,  for  I  did 
not  want  to  be  hard  on  you  twice.  You  took 
advantage  of  me,  and,  as  was  clear  enough,  in 
a  vengeful  spirit.  You  undertook  to  squeeze 
me.  That,  sir,  is  unpardonable.  You  will 
now  sell  at  the  Wilson  rate, — that  is  to  say, 
for  a  hundred  thousand, — or  I  will  go  into  the 

market  and  ruin  your  C stock,  and  you 

will  have  no  one  but  yourself  to  blame  for 
having  to  charge  six  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars  to  profit  and  loss." 

Peter's  face  fell.  He  asked  for  time.  Marie 
was  more  than  angry.  She  raged.  "I  told 
you  to  take  the  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand,"  she  said ;  "  you  refused ;  Mr.  Sharp  is 
justly  aggravated ;  he  will  now  never  go  be 
yond  the  rate  he  cheated  Mrs.  Wilson  on, 
which  is  simple  larceny.  It  is  terrible  !  terri- 


272  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ble ! "  Peter  thought  this  opened  a  way  out. 
"  Keally,"  he  said,  "  I  never  wanted  to  sell. 
Think  of  John  Hope !  "  "  But  Mr.  Sharp  will 
make  you  sell,"  Marie  replied.  "  Why,  Peter, 
how  shockingly  obtuse  you  are  1 "  and  she 
went  into  hysterics. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  did  just  as  he  said  he 
would,  and,  under  the  same  threat,  exacted 
absolute  silence  about  the  transfer  until  he 
should  himself  announce  it  at  the  June  meet 
ing  of  the  stockholders.  Notwithstanding 
that  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  the  first 
time  wrote  appreciating  and  accepting  one  of 
Marie's  poems,  which,  under  ordinary  circum 
stances,  would  have  been  joy  enough  to  her 
for  one  season ;  notwithstanding  that  New 
York  had  a  great  musical  spring;  notwith 
standing  that  an  art  exhibition  opened,  which 
had  never  been  equaled  in  the  metropolis  ;  and 
notwithstanding  that  Marie  and  Peter  enter 
tained  an  unusual  number  of  eminent  persons, 
those  were  dreadful  weeks  at  the  Wainwright 
mansion. 

On  June  4  the  stockholders  met.  The  min 
utes  were  read  and  approved.  Suitable  reso 
lutions  were  introduced  by  Hugh  MacDonald 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     273 

concerning  the  death  of  Theodore  "Wilson. 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  seconded  them,  paying 
the  deceased  a  high  tribute,  and  remarking, 
incidentally,  that  he  hoped  he  had  been  of 
some  little  service  to  Mrs.  "Wilson  in  taking  her 
husband's  Annie  Laurie  stock  off  her  hands  "  at 
a  generous  figure,"  within  an  hour  of  his  learn 
ing  of  the  death.  The  resolutions  were  voted. 

The  annual  election  of  officers  was  then 
proceeded  with.  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  nomi 
nated  himself  for  president  and  general  man 
ager,  and,  for  head  assay er  and  assistant  gen 
eral  manager,  Mr.  Dunbar  McLean,  lately  of 
Johannesburg,  whom,  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
said,  he  had  carefully  looked  up,  and  who  was  a 
distinguished  metallurgical  expert  recently  ar 
rived  in  New  York.  This  was  considered  only 
a  thrust  at  John  Hope  and  Duncan  McLeod, 
and  was  not  expected  to  receive  more  than 
thirty-five  of  the  one  hundred  votes  of  stock. 
There  was,  however,  a  blank  look  on  Peter 
Wainwright's  face,  and  he  voted  his  twenty 
shares  with  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  which 
elected  that  gentleman's  ticket. 

"  For  shame,  Peter !  for  shame  ! "  cried 
Hugh  MacDonald,  urging  reconsideration, 

18 


274          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

and  buttonholing  Peter  with  a  view  to  induc 
ing  him  to  change  his  vote.  At  this  Peter 
colored  scarlet,  looked  as  if  he  would  like  to 
go  through  the  floor,  and  called  on  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  to  explain. 

"  I  will  explain,  sir,  with  the  greatest  pleas 
ure,"  said  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp.  "  Gentle 
men,  you  all  imposed  on  me  at  the  March 
meeting.  Not  only  so,  but  you  made  me  the 
butt  of  some  very  discourteous  laughter.  Mr. 
Wainwright  has,  in  addition,  undertaken  to 
impose  on  me  a  second  time,  since  the  March 
meeting.  Nobody  does  that  sort  of  thing  to 
Bonaparte  Sharp  with  impunity.  I  vowed  to 
humiliate  you  all,  but  especially  Mr.  Wain 
wright,  because  it  was  his  second  offense.  I 
own  fifty-five  shares  of  the  Annie  Laurie 
stock.  I  am  president  and  general  manager. 
My  man  will  replace  Mr.  Hope's  tool,  that 
lunatic,  McLeod.  The  change  of  management 
will  go  into  effect  June  16,  twelve  days  hence. 
Because  Mr.  Wainwright  undertook  to  impose 
on  me  the  second  time,  I  have  compelled  him 
to  come  here,  and,  in  your  presence,  to  go 
through  the  form  of  voting  in  the  new  assist 
ant  general  manager  and  myself.  Gentlemen, 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     275 

this  meeting  stands  adjourned.  There  won't 
be  any  more  meetings  in  a  good  while.  You 
are  empowered,  indeed,  under  the  by-laws,  to 
call  them,  but  you  will  regret  it,  let  me  fore 
warn  you,  if  you  do." 

Thereupon  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  his  face 
wreathed  in  smiles,  bowed  himself  out  of  the 
room.  "  Last  March  they  browbeat  me,  and 
laughed  at  me,  and  carried  a  fool  vote,  peril 
ous  to  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  society, 
against  my  solemn  protest,  and  encouraged 
that  donkey,  "Wainwright,  to  try  to  work  me, 
and  they  are  satisfied  now,  I  hope,"  he 
chuckled  to  himself  as  he  went  down  the  ele 
vator.  "If  anybody  builds  a  blank  wall 
across  my  right  of  way,"  he  continued,  "  I 
smash  it,  I  tell  you ;  and,  when  it 's  school 
boys,  like  Hope  and  Company,  I  smash  them 
into  the  bargain." 

On  June  16  began  the  reign  of  Dunbar  Mc 
Lean  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine.  He  was  a 
great  metallurgist.  He,  however,  drank,  did 
worse  things,  and  had  a  singularly  vindictive, 
venomous  and  cruel  disposition.  These  pecu 
liarities  had  not  escaped  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp's  investigation  ;  but,  in  his  mood  at  the 


276          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

time,  some  of  them  pleased  him  rather  than 
the  contrary,  and  he  contented  himself  with 
this  summary  and  characteristic  conclusion : 
"  If  he's  an  expert,  and  everybody  says  he  is, 
trust  me  to  regulate  the  rest.  John  Hope  was 
the  only  person  I  ever  yet  failed  to  manage, 
when  I  set  out  to ;  and  I  reckon  I  'd  have 
managed  him  easily  enough,  if  he'd  known 
that  pneumonia  would  garner  Wilson,  that  I 
was  so  clever  at  consolation,  and  that  I  had  a 
cinch  on  Peter  Wainwright." 

Dunbar  McLean's  first  act  was  to  discharge, 
in  a  gratuitously  offensive  manner,  Douglas 
Campbell  and  George  Wilkinson.  Next,  he 
expunged  the  rule  against  liquor ;  ordered 
Sunday  work,  a  diminution  of  wages,  the  sus 
pension  of  the  cooperative  store,  of  the  local 
paper,  and  of  the  Institution  for  Savings  ;  and, 
in  particular,  required  the  entire  disuse,  for 
the  present,  of  the  hall  of  the  Miners'  Club. 
"  THIS  MINE  is  RUN  FOE  DIVIDENDS  ONLY," 
his  initial  fulmination  concluded.  "  It  is  not 
a  camp-meeting.  It  is  not  a  section  of  the 
prohibition  party.  It  is  not  a  society  to  pro 
mote  social  purity.  It  is  not  a  charity  tech 
nical  school.  It  is  not  a  Chautauqua.  It  is  a 


He  Smashes  His  Blank  Wall     277 

mine  to  get  out  gold  and  silver.  Angels  can't 
mine.  That  takes  miners.  You  know  what 
miners  are.  Only  such  are  wanted  on  our  pay 

roll.  A  WOED  TO  THE  WISE  IS  SUFFI 
CIENT  ! " 

With  such  dust  and  noise  seemed  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp's  blank  wall  to  have  been  pul 
verized. 


XVIII 


FOE    DIVIDENDS    ONLY 

UNE  16  came  at  the  mid 
dle  of  the  week.  Dun- 
bar  McLean,  the  new 
executive  of  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine,  arrived  by 
the  stage  at  six  o'clock 
on  the  previous  Saturday 
night,  his  countenance 
ruby,  and  several  cases 
of  drinkables  accompanying  his  luggage.  He 
attended  the  Sunday  morning  service,  but, 
before  it  was  over,  went  out  under  consider 
able  excitement.  Duncan  McLeod  spoke  on 
"  Patient  Continuance  in  Well  Doing "  ;  and 
his  plea  for  patience,  for  charity,  for  standing 
by  the  mine,  for  deference  to  authority,  and 
so  forth,  was  so  precisely  the  opposite  of  Dun- 
bar  McLean's  own  temper,  that  it  cut  him  to 
the  quick. 

The  acts  and  the  posting  of  the  order,  sum- 
278 


For  Dividends  Only  279 

marized  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter,  oc 
curred  early  Monday  morning,  to  take  effect 
when  June  16  should  arrive.  The  precipi 
tate  haste  and  brutal  tone  of  the  order  were 
all  too  significant.  Though  the  men  of  the 
mine  had  determined  to  stand  together,  and  to 
try  to  make  headway  against  whatever  might 
be  morally  objectionable  under  the  new 
regime,  they  now  decided  to  leave  the  camp 
as  fast  as  might  be  practicable.  They  were 
the  more  impelled  to  this  by  the  arrival,  Mon 
day  afternoon,  of  two  disreputable-looking 
men,  who  had  in  charge  three  wagon-loads  of 
liquor ;  and  by  the  arrival,  with  them,  of  a 
squad  of  miners  of  the  same  ilk,  who  applied 
for  jobs  and  were  promised  them,  and  of  some 
women,  ostensibly  to  get  places  as  cooks  and 
table  waitresses,  whose  appearance  and  man 
ners  hardly  comported  with  those  occupa 
tions. 

On  the  night  of  the  fifteenth,  therefore, 
under  an  order,  John  Hope's  last,  giving 
them  all  the  evening,  the  men  of  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine  gathered  for  their  last  public 
service  together.  They  did  not  meet  in  the 
hall, — too  many  persons  of  the  D  unbar  McLean 


280          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

stamp  were  already  in  the  camp  to  make  that 
desirable, — but  in  a  readily  accessible  neigh 
boring  canon,  lighted  by  torches  and  the  moon, 
which  was  nearly  full.  The  precaution  had 
been  taken  to  leave  enough  men  in  the  camp 
to  prevent  looting ;  and,  as  if  under  a  kind  of 
awe,  the  rough  characters  contented  them 
selves  with  quietly  drinking  and  gambling. 
Duncan  McLeod  gave  out, — 

"  Oh,  safe  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I," 

and, — 

41 1  know  not  why  God's  wondrous  grace," 

and, — 

"My  hope  is  built  on  nothing  less." 

An  opportunity  for  prayer  being  given,  be 
tween  forty  and  fifty  men  poured  out  their 
souls  in  brief,  moving  supplication.  Then 
George  Wilkinson  said  these  words,  not  from 
a  paper : 

"I  speak  advisedly.  Not  one  of  our  men 
should  stay  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  except 
Sullivan  and  Wilkinson.  As  you  value  our 
lives,  apprise  no  one  that  we  intend  staying. 


For  Dividends  Only  281 

'  They  that  be  with  us  are  more  than  they  that 
be  with  them.' 

"  '  As  a  dream  when  one  awaketh; 
So,  0  Lord,  when  thou  awakest,  thou 
shalt  despise  their  image.'  " 

Then  John  Hope  said  : 

"  I  leave  to-morrow  morning.  So  does  Mr. 
McLeod.  I  return  to  New  York.  Mr. 
McLeod,  who  is  in  very  great  need  of  rest, 
journeys  westward ;  whither,  he  has  not  di 
vulged  to  me.  We  would  both  gladly  stay, 
and  help  you  to  bear  the  heavy  cross  laid  upon 
you,  and  further,  if  we  might,  your  reengage- 
ment  at  other  mines ;  but  such  is  the  personal 
bitterness  of  the  new  management  toward  us, 
that  we  feel  that  we  shall  do  you  a  kindness 
by  not  embarrassing  you  with  our  presence. 

"There  was  a  time,  under  Nero,  and  there 
have  been  many  times  since,  when  Christians 
met,  as  we  meet  to-night,  in  wild  places  and 
under  the  stars.  The  spirit  of  greed  and  of 
arbitrary  force  which  then  compelled  such 
meetings  was  not  intrinsically  different  from 
that  which  has  forced  us  to  our  present  plight. 
Where,  however,  is  Nero  now  ?  Where  is  his 
Rome  ?  Where  are  Philip  II  and  Alva  ? 


282          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Where  are  their  Spain  and  their  Europe? 
Gone.  Looked  back  upon  as  nightmares  of 
the  world.  Objects  of  universal  reproba 
tion. 

"  Similarly,  this  cannot  last.  The  stars  in 
their  courses  fight  against  it.  The  Man  of 
Nazareth  has  drawn  the  sharp  two-edged 
sword  of  his  mouth  for  its  overthrow ;  nay, 
for  the  redemption  even  of  it.  Let  no  man 
be  embittered  by  that  which  has  happened. 
Let  no  man  lose  faith.  Let  no  man  be  greatly 
cast  down. 

"  We  are  nearing  a  new  century.  Never 
did  gold  and  arbitrary  power  seem  more 
potent.  Never  were  they,  in  reality,  so  weak. 
The  child  is  already  in  his  cradle  who  will  see 
gold  used  rightly  ;  capital  used  rightly ;  com 
binations  of  money  and  of  men  used  rightly ; 
and  the  man — whether  capitalist  or  labor 
agitator;  and  both,  let  me  say,  are  liable  to  do 
so — who  shows  himself  capable  of  this  that 
we  now  experience,  and  of  similar  things  that 
are  experienced  widely  over  the  world,  looked 
upon  and  treated  as  a  monster. 

"  Men  of  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  what  you 
have  already  done,  even  should  you  do  no 


For  Dividends  Only  283 

more,  will  work  mightily  to  usher  in  the  new 
day.  You  have  proved  certain  things.  You 
have  made  a  preliminary  and  conclusive  assay. 
Principles  of  highest  importance  have  been 
forever  demonstrated  by  what  you  have  ac 
complished,  and  by  what  you  have  yourselves 
become.  I  thank  you,  and  I  thank  God,  for 
all  this.  But  you  will  do  more,  and  Mr. 
McLeod  and  I  will  do  more.  We  are  not 
quitters,  and  God  is  not  a  quitter. 

"God  bless  you,  my  brothers,  all!  As 
surely  as  God  is  on  his  throne,  and  as  his 
promises  cannot  fail,  this  precious  fellowship 
of  ours  will  be  knitted  up  again,  either  here, 
or  beyond  the  stars ! "  - 

There  was  not  a  dry  eye  when  John  Hope 
thus  closed.  There  was  not  a  face  that  did 
not  glow  with  confidence,  courage  and  high 
purpose. 

Then  Duncan  McLeod  said : 

"  We  would  better  not  stay  here  long.  We 
would  better  not  say  much.  We  would  better 
knit  up  our  fellowship  with  the  Man  of 
Nazareth,  for  we  shall  sorely  need  it  after  this 
night. 

"I    am    asking    pledges.     When    you    are 


284          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

where  alcohol  is,  will  you  continue  to  let 
it  alone  ?  " 

Every  right  hand,  except  Patrick  Sullivan's, 
went  up. 

"When  you  are  where  licentiousness  is, 
will  you  continue  to  let  it  alone  ?  " 

Every  right  hand  went  up. 

"  Will  you  be  the  straight,  efficient,  valiant 
men  that  have  given  Mr.  Hope  and  me  the 
courage  to  force  this  issue  with  the  stock 
holders  of  this  mine  ?  " 

Every  right  hand  went  up  again. 

"Will  you, — and  please  think  carefully 
before  you  indicate, — will  you  follow  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  cost  what  it  may  ?  " 

Every  right  hand  went  up,  and  "  Amen ! " 
"  Amen ! "  "  Amen  ! "  were  ejaculated  on  all 
sides. 

"  Then  we  will  sing,"  continued  Duncan, 

" '  Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds,' 

and  I  will  lead  you  in  a  word  of  prayer  ;  but, 
first,  I  give  you  this  watchword,  which  you 
will  find  in  your  Bibles  at  Daniel  3 :  24,  25 : 

"'Then  Nebuchadnezzar  the  king  was  astonied,  and 
rose  up  in  haste,  and  spake,  and  said  unto  his  counsellors, 
Did  not  we  cast  three  men  bound  into  the  midst  of  the  fire  ? 


For  Dividends  Only  285 

They  answered  and  said  unto  the  king,  True,  O  king.  He 
answered  and  said,  Lo,  I  see  four  men  loose,  walking  in  the 
midat  of  the  fire,  and  they  have  no  hurt ;  and  the  form  of 
the  fourth  is  like  the  Son  of  God.'  " 


Then  that  was  done  which  Duncan  McLeod 
said,  but  the  scene  and  that  which  occurred 
within  it  were  too  sacred  for  us  to  intrude 
upon. 

Within  the  week  that  followed,  it  came 
about  that  not  a  man  of  the  old  force  was  left 
at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  except  George 
Wilkinson  and  Patrick  Sullivan.  It  was  not 
possible,  on  such  short  notice,  for  all  the  men 
to  secure  satisfactory  positions  at  once;  but 
what  Dunbar  McLean  was  pleased  to  charac 
terize  as  a  "  charity  technical  school,"  namely, 
Duncan  McLeod's  free  classes  in  mining  en 
gineering,  together  with  the  other  elevating 
influences  of  the  camp,  had  been  the  means  of 
placing  so  many  of  its  good  men  in  responsible 
positions  in  various  mines  of  that  general 
area,  that,  by  their  cooperation,  within  a 
month,  every  man  had  found  reasonably  satis 
factory  work,  though,  of  course,  not  under 
such  favorable  conditions  as  had  been  enjoyed 
at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine.  Their  homesick- 


286          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ness,  too,  and  sense  of  being  somehow  or 
phaned  were  very  deep. 

Patrick  Sullivan  had  been,  until  the  mutiny, 
a  hard  drinker,  could  carry  a  large  amount 
of  liquor  without  the  slightest  inconvenience, 
and  had  no  scruple  about  its  use  by  himself 
personally,  except  that  he  believed  it  better, 
on  general  principles,  to  abstain, — which  he 
had  now  done  for  more  than  two  years.  In 
consultation  with  George  Wilkinson  he  asked : 

"  Did  not  Mr.  McLeod  read  us,  on  a  Sunda' 
oncest,  o'  two  sons  of  prastes,  whin  the  King 
David  was  driven  out,  that  stayed  wid  that 
bastely  son  o'  his  that  insurricted ;  an'  did 
they  not  feign  thimsil'  friends  to  the  baste, 
and  sind  the  word  to  King  David  o'  all  his 
bastely  doin's?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  George  Wilkinson. 

"  An'  sure,"  continued  Sullivan,  "  if  sons  o' 
prastes  did  the  likes  o'  that,  would  a  cardinal 
require  absolution  if  he  should  do  that 
same  ?  " 

"Seemingly  not,"  George  Wilkinson  re 
plied. 

"Gi'  me  yer  hand,  thin,"  said  Sullivan; 
"  an'  b'  the  Holy  Mother  I  '11  be  the  merriest 


For  Dividends  Only  287 

lad  in  the  camp.  Sure,  they  '11  not  discharge 
Pat  fer  bein'  a  camp-meetin'  man.  But,  Mr. 
Wilkinson,  excipt  fer  the  feignin',  I  '11  do  no 
sin,  barrin'  whiskey,  an'  sure,  Mr.  Wilkinson, 
I  '11  give  straight  reports,  like  thim  prastes' 
sons  did,  an'  may  the  Blessed  Virgin  cause 
that  they  be  to  good  purpose  ! " 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Patrick  Sullivan 
remained  a  miner  in  the  camp,  while  George 
Wilkinson  built  himself  a  cabin  on  ground 
just  off  the  company's  land;  and  that  the 
two  kept  their  ever  vigilant  watch.  Sullivan 
passed  for  a  rough  and  roistering  man,  fond  of 
hard  drinks,  and  his  ruse  was  never  suspected. 
"Kind  of  converts  that  hypocrite,  McLeod, 
would  be  sure  to  make ! "  exclaimed  Dunbar 
McLean;  "and  I'll  wager  three-quarters  of 
them  have  gone  the  same  way  by  this  time." 

Dunbar  McLean  was,  however,  greatly  in 
censed  by  George  Wilkinson's  staying,  and 
secretly  instigated  a  succession  of  petty  perse 
cutions  against  him  with  the  hope  that  he 
would  depart  in  disgust.  After  this  had  been 
tried  for  some  time,  and  most  exasperatingly, 
without  success,  Mr.  Wilkinson  was,  one  fore 
noon,  in  broad  daylight,  set  upon  by  three 


288          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

thugs,  accompanied  by  a  group  of  toughs,  who 
obviously  had  come  to  see  the  sport. 

"  Hands  up !  "  said  Thug  Number  One. 

It  chanced  that  their  intended  victim  was  a 
man  of  almost  preter naturally  swift  motions 
and  an  extraordinary  shot.  While  seeming  to 
be  lifting  his  hands,  he  had  his  revolver  out  of 
his  breast  pocket,  with  it  knocked  up  his  as 
sailant's  weapon  and  shot  him  through  the 
forehead. 

The  other  thugs  started  to  run;  suddenly 
thought  differently  of  it,  apparently  from  fear 
of  ridicule ;  and,  in  the  person  of  Thug  Num 
ber  Two,  made  a  ferocious  rush  on  Mr.  Wil 
kinson.  For  this  he  got  a  bullet  that  severed 
his  jugular  vein.  The  others  of  the  assailing 
party,  crying  "  Murder !  murder !  murder ! " 
thereupon  took  to  their  heels,  and,  before 
noon,  were  far  along  the  road  back  to  civiliza 
tion,  where  people  move  less  swiftly  and  are 
not  such  sure  shots. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  instigating 
cause  of  the  first  assault,  that  cause  seemed  to 
divine  that  quiescence  was  its  policy  ;  and  for 
several  weeks  George  Wilkinson  had  peace. 
He  was  then  apprised  by  Patrick  Sullivan, 


For  Dividends  Only  289 

with  great  stealth,  at  dead  of  night,  of  what 
might  be  expected ;  and,  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
next  night,  as  he  lay  snoring  vigorously,  he 
was  not  so  soundly  asleep  as  to  be  unaware  of 
a  shaft  of  light  from  a  dark  lantern  thrown 
across  his  bed.  The  light  was  intended  to 
render  the  aim  of  a  third  would-be  murderer 
absolutely  sure ;  but  served,  the  rather,  to  lend 
accuracy  to  another  extraordinarily  quick  mo 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  snoring  man,  which 
resulted  in  his  assailant's  being  shot  through 
the  heart.  The  report  operated  as  a  signal, 
and  accomplices  rushed  into  the  room ;  but,  as 
George  Wilkinson  continued  to  snore,  and  to 
seem  profoundly  sleeping,  when  these  gentle 
men  beheld  the  gruesome  sight  that  met  them 
on  the  floor,  they  whispered,  "  His  gun  went 
off  into  his  own  side ! "  Straightway,  then, 
what  with  the  ghastly  spectacle,  and  their 
superstitions,  they  ran  precipitately  away; 
and  it  was  soon  spread  abroad,  among  mem 
bers  of  their  persuasion  widely  over  that  area, 
not  only  that  George  Wilkinson  could  move 
more  swiftly  than  any  other  living  man,  and 
was  a  surer  shot,  and  had  more  nerve,  but 

that,  even  when  he  was  asleep,  the  fates  safely 
19 


290          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

guarded  him.     This  last  was  true,  but  in  a 
sense  profounder  than  the  assassins  intended. 

About  a  week  after  this  occurrence,  the  as 
sistant  general  manager  found  a  note  under 
his  door  which  read  as  follows  : 


"  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  August  7. 
"  To  ME.  DUNBAE  McLEAN, 

"  Head  Assayer  and  Assistant  General  Manager, 

"Annie  Laurie  Mine, 
"MY  DEAESlE: 

"  I  have  been  at  this  mine  since  it  began.  In  our  first 
months  we  had  as  rough  a  group  of  men  here  as  could  be 
found  in  the  entire  Rocky  Mountain  area.  Many  -wicked 
things  were  done  by  them  ;  but  there  is  honor  among 
thieves,  and  especially  among  mining  men,  who,  while  they 
might  not  hesitate  to  steal,  or  to  do  worse  things,  at  heart,  as 
I  have  observed  them,  and  I  know  them  pretty  well,  almost 
invariably  ring  true.  Consequently  there  never  was  a  time, 
even  in  the  worst  conditions,  when  human  life  was  not  safe 
here,  provided  people  behaved  themselves. 

"  Within  a  short  time,  on  the  contrary,  without  any  prov 
ocation  whatever,  my  life  has  been  twice  attempted,  and  it 
has  been  necessary  for  me  to  kill  three  men  in  self-defense. 
Of  the  first  attempt  I  took  no  outward  notice.  Of  the  second 
I  have  taken  no  notice  until  I  have  had  a  week  to  reflect 
upon  it.  With  such  judgment  as  I  am  able  to  use,  after 
this  continued  and  careful  thought,  I  can  in  no  way  account 
for  these  occurrences,  save  by  connecting  them  with  the 
changed  management  of  the  mine. 

"  Except  in  these  two  instances  of  self-defense,  I  desire  to 
add,  I  have  never  laid  violent  hands  on  a  human  being. 
Not  only  so,  but  I  have  never,  since  I  was  a  boy,  made  a 
threat  against  any  one.  I  very  much  regret,  therefore,  the 


For  Dividends  Only  291 

necessity  for  what  I  am  about  to  say  ;  but,  after  mature  de 
liberation,  and  as  a  protection  to  human  life, — for  I  do  not 
wish  to  send  more  men  into  eternity, — I  beg  leave  to  say  to 
you  that,  the  first  time  I  see  any  sign  of  inoffensive  human 
life  being  unsafe  in  this  camp,  whether  in  my  own  case,  or 
in  the  case  of  any  one  else,  you  are  a  dead  man. 
"Sincerely  yours, 

"  GEORGE  WILKINSON.  " 


Whether  or  not  the  suspicion  that  prompted 
this  letter  was  well  grounded,  may  be  inferred 
from  Dunbar  McLean's  answer.  It  was  very 
obsequious.  It  made  no  reference  whatever 
to  the  serious  implication  made  by  George 
Wilkinson.  It  flattered  him.  It  affirmed  the 
writer's  regret  to  have  discharged  him.  It 
excused  that  act  on  the  ground  of  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp's  antipathy  to  the  principal  men 
at  the  mine  under  the  former  management. 
It  offered  him  an  important  situation.  It 
mentioned,  incidentally,  toward  the  end,  the 
shock  it  had  been  to  the  writer  to  know  of  the 
"  unfortunate "  occurrences  referred  to,  and 
professed,  verbosely  and  emphatically,  a  de 
sire  to  cooperate  with  Mr.  Wilkinson,  and 
with  all  friends  of  good  order,  in  preventing 
acts  of  violence  in  the  future.  "  If  they  can 
not  be  discontinued,"  the  letter  said,  in  con- 


292          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

elusion,  "  I  fear  a  mine  which  has  had  such  an 
excellent  name  in  times  past,  will  be  seriously 
discredited." 

To  this  communication  George  Wilkinson 
made  not  the  slightest  reply.  He  would  not, 
for  a  fortune,  have  undertaken  work  under 
Dunbar  McLean.  He  bore  himself  toward 
that  great  man  as  nearly  as  possible  as  Mor- 
decai  bore  himself  toward  Haman.  Dunbar 
McLean  felt  himself  almost  as  much  humili 
ated  by  this  as  Haman  was  by  the  treatment 
to  which  he  was  subjected  by  Mordecai ;  but, 
being  a  coward,  as  Haman  was  not,  he  caused 
George  Wilkinson  to  suffer  no  disadvantage 
therefrom. 

Leaving,  then,  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  under 
the  eye  of  two  such  competent  and  deeply  in 
terested  observers  as  George  Wilkinson  and 
Patrick  Sullivan,  and  delaying  any  resume  of 
the  pecuniary  and  other  successes  of  a  mine 
managed  for  dividends  only,  until  they  shall 
appear  in  their  inevitable  connection  with  this 
history, — it  now  becomes  our  duty  to  inquire 
to  what  extent  this  policy  "  smashed  "  the  de 
posed  president,  and  also  to  what  extent  the 
usurping  new  president  and  his  pusillanimous 


For  Dividends  Only  293 

accomplice  furthered  their  own  standing  by  in 
augurating  it. 

John  Hope  went  at  once  to  New  York. 
Before  he  arrived,  though  neither  he  nor  his 
intimate  friends  had  made  any  talk  about  the 
gross  wrong  that  had  been  done  him,  the  story 
had  got  abroad. 

Feter  Wainwright  had  been  badgered  about 
it  incessantly,  and  had  been  sometimes  se 
verely  criticized.  "  So  you  acted  on  the  prin 
ciple  that  one  good  turn  deserves  another,  in 
selling  out  to  your  former  prospective  father- 
in-law,  did  you  ?  "  said  one. 

"  That  is  the  way  Yale  men  stand  by  their 
college  chums,  is  it  ?  "  he  was  sneeringly  asked 
at  the  University  Club  by  a  Princeton  man. 

One  of  the  heaviest  men  on  the  street  met 
him  in  the  elevator,  got  off  at  his  landing, 
almost  shoved  him  into  a  corner,  and  sternly 
inquired  :  "  Is  it  true  that  you  sold  out  John 
Hope  ?  " 

Peter  undertook  to  evade. 

"Don't  try  to  work  that  on  me,"  his  in 
quisitor  continued.  "  You  in  effect  confess  it. 
I  refused  to  believe  it  until  I  should  have  seen 
you  face  to  face.  It  is  the  scurviest  trick  I 


294          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

have  heard  of  in  New  York,  among  presumably 
honorable  men,  this  man}r  a  day." 

"  But  Sharp  threatened  to  ruin  me,"  feebly 
responded  Peter. 

"  And  you  were  coward  enough  to  do  a  das 
tardly  deed,"  cried  the  speaker,  fiercely,  "  be 
cause  of  his  threats  ?  Is  he  the  only  person 
of  means  in  this  city  ?  Had  you  played  the 
man,  a  dozen  of  us  would  have  joined  in  with 
you,  and  made  Sharp  come  off.  "Wainwright, 
I  am  ashamed  of  you.  It  is  that  kind  of  act 
that  disgraces  "Wall  Street,  many  of  whose 
men,  as  you  well  know,  are  persons  of  unim 
peachable  honor,  and  as  much  interested,  at 
heart,  for  social  betterment,  as  John  Hope  is," 
— and,  with  a  scornful  wave  of  his  hand,  he 
turned  on  his  heel. 

"I  hear,  Wainwright,  that  you  have  been 
heaping  coals  of  fire  on  Father  Sharp's  head," 
said  a  Yale  contemporary  of  his.  "Did  the 
old  man  threaten  to  send  you  to  Fayal  on  his 
yacht?" 

Finally,  Bowers,  the  artist,  whose  indigna 
tion  against  Peter  was  something  fearful,  got 
him  cartooned  most  effectively  in  a  leading 
daily,  and  hit  off  Marie,  by  the  edge  of  a 


For  Dividends  Only  295 

skirt  disappearing  in  the  background  of  the 
picture. 

John  Hope  was  held  in  such  high  esteem  in 
New  York,  and  had,  without  any  particular 
effort  to  make  them  either,  such  a  multitude 
of  friends,  that  Peter  and  Marie  Wainwright 
actually  fell,  for  a  time,  under  a  social  cloud 
for  this  transaction ;  and  the  distinguished 
persons  whom  they  were  continually  inviting 
to  their  home,  almost  invariably  sent  regrets, 
for  several  months,  until  the  matter  had 
partly  died  out  of  memory. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  himself  was  compelled 
to  wince  repeatedly  under  the  thrusts  made  at 
him.  "  I  thought,  Sharp,"  said  one  of  his  set, 
"  that  there  was  no  young  man  on  the  street 
who  stood  so  high  in  your  estimation  as  John 
Hope.  Don't  you  see  the  ridiculous  place 
you  have  put  yourself  in,  even  among  your 
friends,  by  going  back  on  him  so  out 
rageously  ?  " 

A  captain  of  finance  of  another  feather — 
and,  as  the  plain  dealer  with  Peter  Wain- 
wright  suggested,  there  are  many  such  per 
sons,  in  New  York  and  elsewhere,  as  honor 
able,  as  high-minded,  and  as  intent  on  the 


296          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

public  good,  in  their  respective  ways,  as  John 
Hope  was — called  at  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's 
place,  waited  an  hour  to  see  him,  was  ad 
mitted  to  his  private  office,  and  there  gave 
him  such  a  dressing  down  as  he  had  not 
received  since  he  was  a  boy.  He  looked  the 
great  man  straight  in  the  eye,  recited  the 
circumstances,  said  that  such  an  act  was  un 
paralleled  in  his  recollection  among  the  re 
spectable  business  men  of  New  York,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  say,  that,  if  he  ever  heard  of  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp's  doing  a  like  thing  again, 
he,  and  a  number  of  his  friends,  would,  most 
likely,  be  heard  from  on  the  street  in  a  way 
not  conducive  to  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  peace 
of  mind  or  pecuniary  advantage. 

John  Hope,  on  the  contrary,  without  lifting 
his  hand  for  them,  received  several  advan 
tageous  offers  of  important  business  positions ; 
took  time  to  consider  them  carefully;  and, 
finally,  selected  one,  made  him  by  a  very 
prominent  and  honorable  concern,  in  a  line  in 
which  he  was  deeply  interested  and  felt  him 
self  strong,  and  which  called  for  the  use  of  his 
best  powers ;  but  which,  aside  from  the  exer 
cise,  day  by  day,  of  excellent  judgment,  gave 


For  Dividends  Only  297 

him  much  leisure  time.  The  salary  going 
with  it  was  a  large  one,  and  the  desire  was 
expressed  by  those  who  offered  him  the  posi 
tion  that  what  he  now  undertook  might  prove 
the  entering  wedge  toward  a  permanent  and 
pivotal  place  in  the  concern. 

Getting  on  well  pecuniarily,  thus,  conscious 
that  he  was  doing,  and  thoroughly  doing,  a 
man's  work,  and  yet  in  comparative  leisure 
and  freedom  from  burdensome  care, — this 
resolute  man  straightway  put  himself  upon 
a  comprehensive  and  strenuous  course  of  read 
ing  on  industrial  and  economic  subjects.  Not 
only  so,  but  he  was  fortunate  enough  to 
secure  private  instruction  from  a  celebrated 
expert  on  these  matters  at  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  so  that  he  got  the  academic  point 
of  view,  as  well  as  that  which  his  own  experi 
ence  afforded  him  from  the  practical  side.  To 
hear  him,  as  this  work  went  on,  confirming 
many  of  the  conclusions  of  his  profound  and 
masterful  teacher,  and  stoutly  dissenting,  out 
of  the  Annie  Laurie  record  and  along  the  line 
of  his  weaver  father's  thinking,  from  others 
of  them,  would  have  made  your  blood  leap. 

"  When  the  tide  turns,"  said  John  Hope  to 


298          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Hugh  MacDonald,  who,  like  Duncan  McLeod 
and  himself,  was  not  a  "quitter" — "When 
the  tide  turns,  and  I  have  another  chance, 
I  propose  to  be  second  to  no  man  as  a  prac 
tical  expert  in  these  directions ;  and  I  am  sure 
that,  though  we  were  on  right  lines  at  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine,  I  can  greatly  improve  on 
what  we  so  crudely  undertook  there,  in  any 
program  which  it  may  seem  best  to  inaugu 
rate.  In  fact,  I  hope  so  to  augment  wisdom 
and  power  by  what  I  am  now  doing,  that  the 
cause  I  stand  for  may  have  occasion  to  thank 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  as  for  a  real  service,  in 
this  which  he,  with  quite  other  intentions,  has 
seen  fit  to  do." 


XIX 

JOSEPH  MAKES   HIMSELF  STRANGE 

UNOAIST  McLEOD'S 
course  of  action,  while 
his  men  of  the  Annie 
Laurie  mine  were  scat 
tered  like  sheep  over 
the  mountains,  and 
while  the  mine  itself 
was  being  run  for  divi 
dends  only,  will  shortly  appear.  In  this  chap 
ter  we  are  concerned  to  inquire  in  what 
temper  he  met  this  second  great  crisis  of  his 
life,  which  was  also  his  first  outward  defeat. 
This  will  be  best  suggested  by  the  following 
paragraphs  from  a  letter  to  his  mother,  writ 
ten  at  once  on  his  return  from  the  public 
service  in  the  canon.  Janet  McLeod  treasures 
it  still,  with  the  tear  stains  on  every  page, 
telling  their  sorrowful  but  heroic  story. 

After  reciting  the  events  already  familiar 

to  us,  and  describing — this   page  is    hardly 
299 


300          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

legible — the  meeting  he  has  just  dismissed,  he 
goes  on : 

"You  will  not  hear  from  me  again,  my 
mother,  for  a  long  time.  First  of  my  heart ; 
then  of  my  plan. 

"My  heart  is  broken.  What  I  have  now- 
set  down  were  enough  to  break  it.  I  never 
had  a  brother ;  but,  if  brother  love  is  greater 
than  that  I  bear  our  men,  it  must  be  a  perilous 
thing  to  carry  about  in  one's  breast.  I  have 
wrought  for  them.  I  have  watched  them  let 
in  the  light.  I  have  seen  them  open  the  door 
to  Him  that  stands  knocking.  I  would  die  for 
any  one  of  them.  Then,  with  one  wanton, 
cruel  stroke,  we  are  thrust  apart,  and  they  are 
scattered  abroad.  I  could  not  speak  in  the 
canon.  I  took  their  pledges;  gave  them  a 
watchword ;  announced  a  hymn ;  asked  Wil 
kinson  to  the  front;  shook  hands  with  him 
good-bye  for  them  all;  prayed  a  few  short 
sentences ;  and  fled  from  them  up  the  steep 
canon-side. 

"  But  Kathleen  has  done  it.  The  sair  hurt 
at  her  hand  disclosed  to  me  the  Elder  Brother, 
and  so  made  all  men  ma  ain  brithers.  '  Is  the 
hurt  beginning  to  heal?' — you  will  be  asking. 


Joseph  Makes  Himself  Strange    301 

On  the  contrary,  it  was  never  so  deep.  Its 
depth  renders  even  this  parting  almost  a  light 
thing. 

u  Am  I,  then,  unduly  cast  down  ?  No,  my 
mother.  I  could  not  have  the  memory  of  her 
face  with  me,  as  it  always  is,  and  be  cast 
down.  I  never  was  so  brave,  had  such  cour 
age,  had  such  faith,  in  my  life.  Even  this 
Nero's  act  of  a  captain  of  finance  will  be  re 
versed.  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine  will  be  a 
glory  to  Christ  yet.  I  saw  Kathleen  in  my 
dreams  last  night,  and  I  saw  the  Saviour.  I 
know  not  which  seemed  to  me  sweeter,  for  his 
grace  clothed  her  like  the  light.  Then  it  was 
that  I  understood  that  the  imperial  edict  of 
the  captain  of  finance  would  yet  be  reversed. 

"  So,  my  mother,  I  am  valiant,  and  strong, 
and  glad ;  '  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed,'  as 
the  apostle  said. 

"  As  for  my  plan :  I  am  about  to  disappear. 
I  shall  bear  another  name.  My  nearest,  not 
even  you,  my  mother,  will  know  where  I  am. 
Did  not  Joseph  make  himself  strange  to  his 
brethren  ?  Spake  he  not  roughly  unto  them  ? 
Did  he  not  these  things  against  their  tyran 
nous  envy  and  hate?  Were  they  not  thank- 


302          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ful,  afterward,  that  he  had  deemed  it  wise  so 
to  bear  himself?  Similarly,  if  God  will  be 
with  me  in  this  way  that  I  go,— and  I  feel  in 
my  soul  that  he  will, — I  shall  yet  defeat  the 
envy  and  hate  even  of  a  captain  of  finance ; 
and,  my  mother,  not  in  wrath  or  vengef  ulness, 
but,  as  with  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  for  his 
own  good,  in  money,  and  in  every  other  re 
spect. 

"  What  explanation  will  you  give  when  you 
are  asked  about  me  ?  Simply  say  that  Dun 
can  was  sore  worn  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine  ; 
that  he  needed  to  be  free  from  business  alto 
gether,  even  that  by  telegraph,  and  therefore 
withheld  his  address ;  that  he  pined  to  look 
again  on  the  Southern  Cross;  that  he  will 
write,  and  will  be  back  again,  after  a  time ; 
and  that  you  are  quite  at  ease  that  it  should 
be  so,  for  his  sake.  All  these  items,  unless 
the  last,  are  strictly  true.  You  will  make  the 
last  true,  my  mother  ? 

"If  any  harm  come  to  me,  even  were  it 
death,  you  will  get  a  cablegram  instantly,  for 
I  shall  have  arranged  against  all  contingen 
cies,  in  ways  that  cannot  miscarry.  No  news 
will  therefore  be  good  news. 


Joseph  Makes  Himself  Strange    303 

"But  what  if  harm  shall  come  to  my 
mother  ?  Ah,  that  is  the  hard  thing !  But  I 
have  faith  that  such  will  not  befall. 

"  Good-bye,  my  mother.  Love  for  my  men 
of  the  Annie  Laurie  were  motive  enough  for 
that  which  I  am  now  undertaking;  but,  be 
lieve  me,  it  is  chiefly  for  the  love  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  of  Kathleen,  and  of  you,  that  I 
do  it." 

Waiting  until  his  plan  can  consecutively  un 
fold  itself  before  us,  it  requires  only  to  be 
noted  here  that  Janet  and  Duncan  McLeod 
were  so  at  one,  that  her  confidence  in  him 
and  in  God  was  so  complete,  and,  especially, 
that  she  had  so  vicariously  entered  into  his 
anguish  about  Kathleen, — that,  notwithstand 
ing  the  terrible  strain  upon  her  of  his  silence, 
and  of  her  uncertainty  where  he  might  be,  she 
made  true  that  which  Duncan  requested,  and 
was  "  quite  at  ease  that  it  should  be  so,  for  his 
sake."  They,  be  it  added,  are  right,  who  re 
ject  certain  artificial  interpretations  of  the 
"vicarious  sacrifice"  of  Jesus.  Janet  and 
Duncan  both  did  that.  But,  be  it  further 
added, — a  truth  which  experience  had  pro 
foundly  taught  them, — that  no  adequate  love 


304          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

can  exist,  least  of  all  that  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  without  "vicarious  sacrifice"  in  its 
true  and  eternal  sense. 

But  even  Duncan's  letter  to  his  mother  does 
not  so  perfectly  reveal  his  temper  under  his 
terrible  defeat,  as  does  the  following  incident : 

Registered,  some  months  later,  at  Mel 
bourne,  as  Thomas  Bennett ;  in  outward  ap 
pearance  a  portly  English  gentleman,  with 
heavy  side  whiskers ;  and  never  for  one  mo 
ment  suspecting  that  Kathleen  Gordon  is  else 
where  than  in  Great  Britain, — Duncan  un 
avoidably  overhears,  at  his  first  meal  after 
landing,  this  conversation  across  a  dining-table 
of  the  chief  hotel  in  Australia : 

"  She 's  a  wonder ! " 

"Is n't  she?" 

"  First  woman  speaker  I  ever  heard  that 
completely  commanded  me." 

"  And  they  say  that,  with  all  her  splendor  of 
moral  purpose,  she  is  very  simple  and  win 
some." 

"  Perfectly  charming.  Was  the  light  of  the 
government  ball  last  night.  Wins  the  admi 
ration  and  confidence  of  everybody.  Has 
smashed  a  dozen  hearts, — people  on  the  top 


Joseph  Makes  Himself  Strange    305 

wave,  too, — since  she  came,  and  does  not  even 
surmise  it.  It  will  be  a  brave  man  that  asks 
her  hand.  Beg  pardon  for  such  talk ;  spoken, 
however,  in  no  trifling  spirit,  but  to  show 
what  she  is.  Daughter  of  a  multi-millionaire, 
and  loves  the  people  of  the  slums  best !  Is  it 
not  like  Jesus  and  the  fishermen  ?  Do  n't  fail 
to  hear  her  last  address  at  the  Opera  House  to 
night.  She  sails  for  home  to-morrow  morning." 

Duncan  has  landed  in  the  late  afternoon. 
It  is  now  seven  o'clock.  The  men  talking  have 
gone,  without  mentioning  a  name.  He  knows 
not  to  whom  they  refer,  and  dares  not  make 
inquiry,  or  even  look  into  a  newspaper,  lest  he 
betray  himself.  He  shoves  away  his  plate  un 
touched.  He  hastily  dresses.  He  is  at  the 
Opera  House  at  seven  thirty.  Already  it  is 
three-quarters  full,  but  he  secures  a  seat  that 
perfectly  commands  the  stage,  though  pur 
posely  one  a  little  sheltered  from  view.  At 
seven  forty-five  there  is  not  a  vacant  sitting ; 
at  eight  there  is  no  standing  room. 

The  governor-general  brings  her  in.  The 
applause  is  deafening.  She  bows  acknowl 
edgment  and  takes  her  seat  modestly,  yet 
with  perfect  composure.  The  simple,  manly, 


20 


306          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

felicitous  words  of  the  governor-general,  in 
introducing  her,  are  said,  and  she  rises  to 
speak.  It  is  Kathleen ! 

She  is  tall  and  fair,  has  a  certain  dignity 
that  is  almost  stately,  and  yet  is  lithe  and 
swift  and  graceful  in  movement,  like  a  girl. 
Her  face  reminds  you  of  the  Murillo  of  our 
fourth  chapter.  Her  eyes  hold  you  like  stars 
in  a  June  night.  When  she  speaks,  Duncan 
divines,  from  the  quality  of  her  voice,  that  her 
experience  has  paralleled  his.  Tenderness, 
gentleness,  a  great,  deep,  suffering  heart,  ap 
pear  to  him  to  be  behind  the  words. 

She  begins  in  low  tones,  but  is  perfectly 
heard  throughout  the  great  auditorium.  Her 
diction,  mainly  Anglo-Saxon,  is  exquisite  ;  her 
modulation,  perfect ;  her  hold  on  the  audience, 
from  her  first  syllable,  absolute.  Her  story 
of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  social  settle 
ment  movement  in  Great  Britain  and  Amer 
ica  is  clear,  graphic,  full  of  illustration,  and 
so  moving  that  tears,  at  times,  stream  down 
many  faces.  Occasional  touches  of  humor, 
too,  and  even  of  mirth,  cause  ripples  of  sub 
dued  laughter  to  play  over  the  audience.  She 
speaks  of  Hull  House,  and  even  of  John 


Joseph  Makes  Himself  Strange    307 

Hope's  beloved  Prospect  Union,  as  if  she  had 
visited  them  both.  Then,  as  she  draws  to  the 
close,  occur  these  words  : 

"Men  and  women  of  Australia,  duty  for 
bade  my  accepting  the  kind  invitation  to 
come  to  you.  It  arrived,  however,  at  a  crisis 
in  my  life,  steadied  me  to  go  forward,  and 
I  thank  you  for  it.  It  has,  I  regret  to  say, 
taken  me  fifteen  months  to  fulfil  my  promise, 
then  made,  of  a  brief  visit  to  you.  I  hardly 
ought  to  have  come  at  all,  such  is  the  pressure 
at  home;  but,  sailing  as  I  do  to-morrow 
morning,  I  shall  go  back  stronger  for  the 
work  there,  by  reason  of  the  touch  I  have  had 
with  this  young  commonwealth  of  yours,  so 
full  of  inconceivable  possibilities,  so  advanced 
along  many  good  lines  already,  and  so  eager 
for  yet  fresh  forward  steps.  May  I  illustrate, 
in  closing,  the  spirit  of  enthusiasm  and  sacri 
fice  which  the  sort  of  life  I  have  been  de 
scribing,  evokes  ?  " 

Then  Kathleen  adduces  example  after  ex 
ample,  American,  English,  Scottish.  Crown 
ing  them  is  this : 

"I  know  a  young  woman  who  had  loved 
from  a  child.  None  knew  it.  She  never  ex- 


308          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

pected  that  her  love  would  seek  her.  Sud 
denly  it  did.  It  was  glorious.  It  sought  her 
gloriously.  She  was  caught  up,  as  the  apostle 
said,  into  Paradise."  Here  Kathleen's  face 
shines  like  the  sun.  "Then,"  she  goes  on, 
"not  for  social  settlement  work, — for  there 
are  many  eager  to  enter  that, — but  because 
she  had  opportunity,  as  she  thought,  to  modify 
those  deplorable  conditions  which  render  so 
cial  settlements  necessary,  that  young  woman 
said,  Nay,  to  the  dearest  longing  of  her  life. 
I  am  not  saying  that  she  acted  rightly,  and 
would  not  have  you  so  interpret  me.  It  is 
not  casuistry  that  we  are  thinking  of  to-night, 
but  a  far  larger  thing,  namely,  willingness  for 
utmost  sacrifice  in  a  great  cause.  Whether 
rightly  or  wrongly,  then, — and  I  know  several 
parallel  cases, — she  made  the  costliest  sacri 
fice  that  it  is  possible  for  a  woman  to  make  in 
order  to  be  true  to  this  great  exigency  of  our 
time. 

"  O  men,  O  women,  of  Australia,  while 
your  commonwealth  is  yet  young,  forefend, 
I  pray  you,  those  industrial-economic  condi 
tions  for  which  such  sacrifices  as  these  can 
only  partly  make  amends  in  countries  hoary 


Joseph  Makes  Himself  Strange    309 

with  age  when  yours  began.  May  God,  in 
his  great  mercy,  grant  such  grace  to  Aus 
tralia  1 " 

She  closes.  The  applause,  deafening  and 
long-continued,  turns  into,  "God  Save  the 
Queen ! " — sung  by  three  thousand  voices 
profoundly  moved.  Then  this  fair  creature, 
her  face  like  that  of  St.  Cecilia  listening  to 
the  angel,  is  surrounded  by  an  enthusiastic 
throng,  and  Duncan  faces  once  more  the  Hill 
Difficulty. 

For  deep  has  called  unto  deep.  The  an 
guish  in  that  woman's  heart,  transmuted  into 
cheer,  enthusiasm,  and  love  for  the  suffering 
ones  of  earth,  Duncan  knows,  more  plainly 
than  if  she  had  put  it  into  words,  and  only  as 
one  can  know  who  has  experienced  the  same. 
Had  he  not  been  a  man  of  highest  principle, 
Kathleen  had  not  sailed  for  Liverpool  the 
next  morning,  without  first  saying  to  him,  face 
to  face,  whether  or  not  her  decision  seemed  to 
her  to  have  been  the  true  one.  On  the  con 
trary,  amid  that  mighty  assembly,  taking 
one  last,  hungering  look  at  that  queenly  form 
and  transfigured  face,  he  turned  on  his  heel, 
left  the  hall,  went  to  his  room,  and  did  not 


310          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

leave  it  again  until  Kathleen  was  far  out 
at  sea. 

Two  considerations,  perceived  with  absolute 
clearness,  and  as  mandatory  over  him  as  if 
Kathleen  had  herself  enjoined  them,  decided 
him  upon  this  course.  The  first  consideration 
was  the  same  as  that  which  deterred  Jesus  from 
making  stones  into  bread.  The  second,  was 
— Patrick  Sullivan  and  Jamie  McDuff  and 
George  "Wilkinson  and  the  rest,  his  sheep  in 
the  wilderness,  whom  he  must  first  gather 
into  one  fold. 


XX 

A  RIGHTEOUS  WOMAN'S  REPENTANCE 

HILE  Duncan  McLeod 
is  ascending,  thus,  the 
Hill  Difficulty,  look 
ing  the  lions  straight 

^ in    the    eye,   nothing 

daunted;  and  is  on 
his  way,  as  one  cannot  but  hope,  to  enter  some 
time  the  House  Beautiful,  we  are  permitted  to 
read  this  letter  from  Kathleen  Gordon,  written 
from  the  Levant  on  her  voyage  to  Australia, 
and  postmarked  Port  Said.  For  Kathleen's 
closing  words  at  Melbourne,  to  which  Duncan 
has  just  listened,  had  their  spring  in  certain 
heart-revealings  which  the  voyage  out  had 
brought  to  her,  and  which,  as  a  sort  of  annota 
tion,  require,  frankly  and  at  once,  to  be  placed 
before  the  reader. 

"  Eastern  Mediterranean,  January  10. 
"  MY  DEAREST  MOTHER  : 

"  How  can  I  tell  you  of  these  great  days  ! 
"We  have  had  perfect  weather.     I  prove  on  the 
3" 


312          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

long  voyage,  as  always  on  shorter  ones,  a 
faultless  sailor.  Though  it  is  midwinter,  the 
weather,  even  on  the  North  Atlantic,  has 
been  springlike,  and  I  have  been  above  deck 
fifteen  hours  out  of  every  twenty-four.  The 
first  day  or  two  I  received  many  social  atten 
tions  :  but,  in  a  way  not  to  offend,  but  rather, 
as  I  think,  to  enhance  respect,  I  let  it  be  un 
derstood  that  I  needed  quiet ;  and,  conse 
quently,  I  have  had  enough  very  pleasant  com 
pany,  and  yet  much  also  of  that  solitude  which, 
out  of  so  full  a  life,  I  greatly  craved.  The 
moon  was  growing  serviceable  on  the  Atlantic, 
and  we  have  had  it  coming  to  the  full  on  the 
Mediterranean.  Thus,  nights  and  days  alike 
have  given  me  a  succession  of  never-to-be-for 
gotten  pictures. 

"  The  people  themselves  have  been  tonic. 
The  Australian  ships  are  spacious  and  mag 
nificent.  The  table  and  service  are  admirable. 
The  passengers,  as  a  rule,  are  Australian,  with 
means,  breadth  of  view,  ideals,  and  a  breath, 
somehow,  of  '  the  open,'  that  we  of  the  Snug 
Little  Isle  tend  to  be  a  bit  deficient  in.  I  have 
been  making  a  study  of  them,  as  a  preparation 
for  my  brief  Australian  work.  The  empire, 


A  Righteous  Woman's  Repentance  313 

and  intense  loyalty  to  it ;  federation  of  our 
colonies ;  local  autonomy,  as  with  the  States 
in  America ;  a  united  front  withal,  common 
purposes,  one  flag,  and,  wherever  that  flag 
flies,  altruistic  aims  for  the  world, — are  the 
ruling  notes,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  for  this 
youthful  but  mighty  commonwealth  beneath 
the  Southern  Cross. 

"  How  it  stirs  one's  heart !  What  a  Provi 
dence  there  has  been  in  British  history ! — isola 
tion  of  our  Islands  ;  close  touch,  nevertheless, 
with  the  Continent,  and  most  helpful  interac 
tion  between  the  two  ;  on  our  side  the  *  streak 
of  silver  sea,'  homes,  freedom,  a  spiritual  re 
ligion  ;  and  then  these,  as  time  has  ripened, 
gradually  colonized  all  over  the  world, — in  the 
United  States,  in  Canada,  in  Africa,  in  India, 
in  Australia,  and  dotting,  here  and  there, 
almost  the  whole  globe  ! 

"  Consider  the  way,  too,  in  which  the  United 
States,  through  strikingly  providential  lead 
ings,  is  bursting  forth  into  a  great,  free,  world- 
power  !  Are  there  not  signs  already,  my 
mother,  that  the  two  great  English-speaking 
nations,  at  heart  one,  will,  ere  long,  go  forth 
conquering  and  to  conquer,  not  with  sabers 


314          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

or  cannon  or  war-ships,  but  with  liberty  and 
social  regeneration  and  religion  ? 

"  But  it  is  the  past  that  has  been  mainly 
with  me.  Off  our  Islands,  off  France,  off 
Spain  and  Portugal,  how  the  entire  history  of 
Europe  has  seemed  to  be  looking  out  across 
the  bright  waters  !  Then  the  Pillars  of  Her 
cules,  the  shores  of  Africa,  of  Italy,  of  Greece, 
of  Phoenicia,  and  of  Egypt,  have  reviewed  for 
me  the  story  of  this  planet.  Caesar,  and  Han 
nibal,  and  Alexander,  and  David,  and  Rameses ; 
Augustine,  and  Paul,  and  John,  and  Epictetus, 
and  Plato,  and  Socrates,  and  Homer,  and  Isa 
iah,  and  Moses,  and  Abraham  have  seemed, 
all  of  them,  very  near.  Oh,  that  our  ship 
might  have  entered  the  JEgean  Sea  1  Oh, 
most  of  all,  that  I  might  have  seen  Bethle 
hem,  and  Nazareth,  and  Calvary,  and  Olivet ! 
But,  my  mother,  He  who  gave  these  their 
meanings, — yes,  and  who  gave  the  others  their 
meanings,  too, — has  been  present  with  me  as 
never  before. 

"  And  this  leads  me  to  what  is  most  on  my 
heart.  I  have  wronged  you,  my  mother,  and 
you,  my  father.  Not  in  anything  outward, — 
God  forbid ! — but,  since  November  4,  a  year 


A  Righteous  Woman's  Repentance  315 

ago,  when  the  letter  from  Colorado  came,  in 
what  I  have  withheld  from  you;  for  I  owe 
such  a  mother  and  such  a  father  my  confi 
dence.  You  were  both  so  good  to  me  then ; 
so  tender,  considerate,  sympathetic;  so  open 
and  inclining  in  the  direction  I  should  natu 
rally  have  taken ;  so  wisely  reticent,  neverthe 
less  ;  and  so  helpful  in  every  way !  Believe 
me,  though  I  almost  adored  you  before, 
neither  of  you  ever  so  shone  in  my  eyes  as 
in  those  days  and  since. 

"  But  I  sealed  up  my  heart  against  you.  I 
made  myself  a  kind  of  Amazon  in  outward 
temper.  I  plunged  fearfully  into  work. 
Where  it  would  all  have  ended,  I  know  not, 
but  for  something  that  happened  in  a  docker's 
home  in  Liverpool  the  next  spring.  A  frail 
little  wife  lay  dying.  *  Could — you— fetch — 
Philip  ?'  she  asked,  between  breaths,  plead 
ingly.  I  hailed  a  cab,  gave  its  driver  two 
sovereigns,  and  dashed  like  a  mad  woman  two 
miles  and  back  through  the  congested  streets 
in  thirty-five  minutes. 

" '  Aw,  my  Mary  ! '  the  docker  exclaimed, 
as  if  his  heart  would  break. 

"  *  My  Philip  1 '  the  sick  woman  answered. 


316          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

1  Do  n't  go,  Miss  Gordon,'  she  added,  for  I  was 
trying  to  leave  them  alone ;  '  I  want  you  next 
after  Philip.' 

"He  wrapped  her  in  a  blanket.  He  lifted 
her, — the  Hercules  that,  when  I  found  him, 
was  putting,  unaided,  an  upright  piano,  just  off 
the  Etruria,  upon  a  dray, — he  lifted  her  into  his 
arms.  They  spoke,  in  the  next  hour,  scarcely 
a  dozen  words.  Their  eyes,  their  looks,  his 
caresses,  her  touches  of  the  hand,  told,  how 
ever,  far  more  than  volumes  could  have  done. 

"'Kaise  my  head,  please,  Philip,'  she  at 
length  said ;  and  then,  with  a  strange  strength, 
asked :  *  Miss  Gordon,  would  you  be  offended 
if  a  dying  woman  should  speak  ? ' 

"  *  By  no  means ;  please  do  so,'  I  replied. 

"  '  Miss  Gordon,'  she  went  on,  praising  the 
Stirling  House  work,  saying  that  it  had 
changed  their  neighborhood,  and  the  life  of 
Philip  and  herself,  and  adding  to  what  person 
she  thought  it  had  been  primarily  due.  '  But, 
Miss  Gordon,'  she  continued,  as  one  who  must 
unburden  one's  mind,  '  forgive  me,  but  you  are 
not  the  woman  you  used  to  be.' 

"  Then  she  motioned  her  husband  to  lay  her 
back  for  breath,  and,  as  he  did  so,  placed  her 


A  Righteous  Woman's  Repentance  317 

hand  against  his  cheek  with  a  tenderness  that 
I  never  saw  even  between  you  and  father, 
though  your  relations  are  so  beautiful. 

"  '  Raise  me  up  again,  please/  she  said,  after 
a  little,  and  resumed  :  '  Miss  Gordon,  are  you 
not  killing  some  man  ?  Are  you  not  killing, 
thereby,  the  highest  things  in  yourself  ?  Miss 
Gordon,'  she  tried  to  add,  but  her  breath  was 
failing, — 'Miss — Gordon — does  not — it  say — 
"  He— that— loveth— is— born— of— G  "  '—but 
here  she  fell  back,  ceased  breathing,  and 
yet,  even  then,  somehow  succeeded  in  laying 
her  hand  once  more  against  her  husband's 
cheek. 

"  I  slipped  out,  and  left  him  alone  with  his 
dead.  In  a  half  hour  he  emerged, — that  burly, 
begrimed  docker, — and,  oh,  my  mother,  some 
great  artist  ought  to  have  seen  him,  and  to 
have  studied  his  face  for  a  Dante  meeting 
Beatrice  in  the  other  world  ! 

"  It  was  after  that  that  I  went  alone,  the 
fortnight,  to  Arran.  I  hope  that  I  have  been 
a  different  woman  from  that  time.  It  was  all 
deeds  before.  I  hope  that  it  has  been  love  and 
deeds  since.  Before,  it  was  all  a  following  of 
the  Hero  Jesus,  but  in  that  spirit  in  which 


318  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Saul  of  Tarsus  idealized  and  heroically  set 
himself  to  serve,  as  he  thought,  the  ancient 
Law.  Since,  it  has  been,  I  hope,  a  sitting,  the 
rather,  at  Jesus'  feet. 

"  But,  even  since  that,  I  have  kept  on  with 
holding.  It  came  over  me,  in  its  unloveliness, 
selfishness  and  ingratitude,  under  the  full 
moon,  while  we  sailed  past  Malta,  the  scene 
of  St.  Paul's  shipwreck,  and  while  I  was  medi 
tating  upon  his  great  sin  amid,  as  he  thought, 
highest  moral  purpose  and  even  actual  right 
eousness.  (It  is  the  next  day  after  Malta,  that 
I  am  writing  you.) 

"What  is  it  that  I  have  withheld?  The 
weightiest  thing,  after  God,  in  my  life.  You 
see  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  speak  to  you 
of  Duncan  McLeod,  as  I  ought  to  have  done 
when  his  letter  came ;  yes,  and  perhaps  even 
before.  For  I  loved  him  from  my  going  to 
Mrs.  McLeod's  for  Bible  study.  I  never 
dreamed  he  could  be  mine.  He  would  not 
dare  ask  for  me,  even  if  he  wanted  to,  because 
of  father's  money,  I  thought.  That  consider 
ation,  of  itself,  gave  me  an  aversion  to  wealth 
which  I  can  hardly  yet  overcome ;  and  which, 
long  before  my  study  of  the  industrial-eco- 


A  Righteous  Woman's  Repentance  319 

nomic  situation,  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
views  on  that  subject  which  I  now  hold,  and 
which  father  so  deeply  deplores.  Later,  when 
Duncan's  honors  and  successes  began  to  come, 
I  was  sure  he  would  not  want  to  ask  for 
me,  under  any  conditions, — that  I  was  not 
enough  for  him.  But  loving  him — and,  until 
I  am  now  writing,  none  but  God  ever  knew — 
made  me,  nevertheless,  by  God's  help,  the 
woman  I  became. 

"When,  then,  on  that  November  4,  I  got 
the  letter,  it  was  as  if  heaven  had  descended 
to  earth.  But,  meantime,  I  had  grown  so 
strenuous  about  duty,  and  about  the  Hero 
Jesus, — for  that  was  the  way  I  took,  all  mis 
takenly,  even  Henry  Drummond,  as  Duncan, 
in  his  letter,  implied  that  he,  too,  had  done, — 
that  I  would  not  listen  to  your  suggestion 
about  the  divine  leadings,  and  the  voice 
within,  but  wrote  him,  Nay.  I  did  so,  indeed, 
on  most  conscientious  grounds,  of  which  I  have 
never  spoken  to  any  one  except  Duncan ;  but, 
if  I  ought  not  to  leave  Scotland,  as  I  then 
thought,  and  still  think,  that  was  no  reason 
why  I  should  not  frankly  have  said,  *  I  have 
loved  you  almost  since  I  can  remember ' ;  and 


320          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

no  reason  why  I  should  have  done  far  worse, 
namely,  why  I  should  have  forbidden  him,  as 
in  effect  I  did,  ever  to  reopen  the  subject.  To 
think  that  I  did  that !  That  I  affirmed  a  uni 
versal  negative  !  That  I  undertook  to  limit  a 
free  man,  and  God's  providence  for  all  the  fu 
ture  !  "Why,  setting  all  thought  of  self  aside, 
that  act  seems  little  short  of  blasphemy  ! 

"  Now  you  know  all.  Please,  mother,  make 
sure  that  father  reads  this  letter.  Please  for 
give,  both  of  you,  my  withholding  all  this 
from  you,  even  as  I  trust  that  God  forgives 
me. 

"  Of  one  thing  I  am  sure :  there  can  be  no 
back  track  at  present,  if  ever.  I  cannot  re 
open  the  matter.  Nor  can  I  let  you  or  father 
reopen  it,  through  Mrs.  McLeod,  for  in 
stance,  of  whom  you  are  both  so  fond.  Dun 
can  will  not  improbably  have  turned  in  some 
other  direction.  Not  that  he  is  unsteadfast ; 
far  otherwise ;  but  that,  when  he  saw  me  so 
churlish,  he  would  naturally  say,  '  Kathleen  is 
not  what  I  thought  her  to  be ;  I  loved  an 
ideal,  not  her.'  And,  even  if  he  still  regards 
me,  there  is  a  way  of  the  Divine  Providence 
from  which  one  may  not  arbitrarily  withdraw 


A  Righteous  Woman's  Repentance  321 

herself,  especially  if  she  has  once  made  light  of 
its  leadings.  '  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone.'  'The  cup  which  rny  Father  hath 
given  me,  shall  I  not  drink  it  ? ' 

"  With  my  heart's  best  love,  save  that  for 
Duncan, — which,  as  with  the  love  for  Jesus, 
makes  my  love  for  you  both  even  greater, — 
"  Your  ain  lassie, 

"KATHLEEN." 

Inclosed  with  this  letter,  Annie  Gordon 
found  the  following  lines,  clipped  from  an 
Australian  newspaper : 

1 '  Love  comes  with  the  morning's  flush, 

With  the  blaze  of  noon, 
With  the  dew  at  the  evening's  hush, 
With  the  rising  moon. 

"He  knows  neither  high  nor  low, 

Neither  young  nor  old, 
Nor  the  fiery  tropics'  glow, 
Nor  arctic  cold. 

"  He  beams  in  the  maiden's  eye, 

In  the  eye  of  the  sage, 
In  the  eye  if  a  warrior  die, 
In  the  orbs  of  age. 

"And  out  of  his  fires,  in  pain, 

And  smiles,  and  tears, 
Are  forged  the  links  of  the  chain 
That  binds  the  spheres." 

21 


XXI 

BONAPARTE  SHAEP   CATCHES   A  TABTAE 

UNO  AN  McLEOD  was 
a  law  unto  himself. 
What  he  did,  as  in  this 
chapter  record  ed,  —  his 
"  plan,"  as  he  called  it  in 
writing  to  his  mother, — 
this  writer  neither  indorses  nor  condemns. 
Duncan  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of  third 
cousin  to  Jamie  Soutar  of  Drumtochty.  He 
would  debate  the  proposition  with  John  Hope 
by  the  hour,  "  That  not  all  people  have  a  right 
to  the  truth."  But,  though  you  might  con 
demn  him  therein,  you  would  require,  as  with 
his  third  cousin,  to  travel  a  long  way  to  find  a 
truer  man. 

To  bring  this  whole  matter  in  outline  before 
us,  we  shall  have  to  return  to  Colorado,  to  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine,  and  to  the  small  hours  at 

the  beginning    of    June    16,   following  that 
322 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    323 

memorable  service,  the  previous  evening,  in 
the  canon,  under  the  ripening  moon. 

The  seventy  miles'  ride  to  the  railway  sta 
tion,  from  three  o'clock  that  morning  until 
five  o'clock  the  next  afternoon,  was  destined 
never  to  be  forgotten  by  both  Duncan  Mc- 
Leod  and  John  Hope,  After  mounting  the 
stage  and  getting  under  way,  each  man  closed 
his  eyes,  and  supposed  that  the  other  thought 
him  asleep.  On  the  contrary,  each  man  was 
never  more  awake,  and  the  intensity  of  their 
thinking  could  not  be  expressed  in  words. 
This  condition  continued  until  at  seven  o'clock 
they  stopped  at  a  ranch  for  breakfast. 

When  they  were  on  their  way  again,  each 
tried,  for  an  hour  or  two,  to  keep  up  the 
other's  spirits  by  an  outward  gaiety  not  lack 
ing  in  humor,  bright  repartee  and  brilliant 
passages,  amid  which,  for  the  moment,  they 
really  had  a  very  merry  time.  As  the  fore 
noon  waned,  and  until  after  dinner  at  another 
ranch,  they  largely  relapsed  into  silence  but 
kept  a  cheerful  mien.  After  dinner  they  went 
through  the  sleeping  act  again,  each  supposing 
that  the  other  was  blissfully  oblivious  to  all 
outer  things ;  but,  as  before,  each  man  was  do- 


324          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ing  prodigious  thinking.  When  they  alighted 
at  the  station,  each  was  very  bright  and  sunny, 
full  of  jokes  and  good  fellowship,  and  this 
mood  continued  almost  until  the  moment  of 
their  parting. 

During  the  day's  more  serious  conversation, 
John  frankly  outlined  to  Duncan  that  general 
course  of  procedure  which  he  intended  enter 
ing  upon  when  he  should  reach  New  York, 
and  with  the  working  out  of  which  the  reader 
is  already  familiar. 

Duncan,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  the 
utmost  reticence  about  his  plans,  simply  say 
ing,  in  the  tone  which  he  had  requested  his 
mother  to  assume,  that,  after  such  a  long  and 
unbroken  period  of  exacting  toil,  he  wanted 
an  extended  rest,  and,  probably,  before  his 
return  would  see  some  of  the  islands  of  the 
Pacific  and  come  underneath  the  Southern 
Cross. 

"  Do  not  for  a  moment,  John,"  he  added, 
"  think  me  unduly  downhearted,  though  this 
is  a  terrible  blow  for  us  all ;  but  assume  that, 
after  these  full  years,  I  shall  be  lying  fallow, 
filling  up,  and,  I  hope,  learning  something. 
My  plans  are  not  fully  matured,  and  I  think 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    325 

it  better,  until  I  have  further  light  on  the  sub 
ject,  to  withhold  even  my  address,  and,  much 
more,  any  itinerary  of  my  wanderings.  I  am 
liable,  as  you  may  imagine,  to  various  over 
tures  in  mining  directions,  particularly  when 
it  shall  come  to  be  at  all  generally  known 
that  I  am  unemployed.  I  want  to  be  free,  in 
particular,  from  the  interminable  letter-writ 
ing,  telegraphing,  and  even  cabling,  of  that 
sort;  but,  John,  however  long  I  may  disap 
pear  from  the  world,  do  not  for  one  moment 
think  that  the  friendship  which  has  so  long 
existed  between  us,  and  the  common  objects 
which  we  have  in  view,  can  in  the  least  grow 
dim.  Sooner  or  later  you  will  hear  from  me, 
and  I  hope,  when  the  time  arrives,  to  give  an 
account  of  myself  that  will  be  satisfactory 
even  to  a  person  of  your  exacting  standards." 
These  words  were  said  after  the  merry 
making  of  the  forenoon,  just  before  both  the 
men  lapsed  into  more  or  less  of  silence. 
When  Duncan  had  spoken  them,  as  if  some 
thing  weighty  were  off  his  mind,  he  seemed 
less  tense  than  earlier;  and  John,  who  care 
fully  refrained  from  questioning  him,  felt 
greatly  relieved  thereby :  for,  in  view  par- 


326          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ticularly  of  Duncan's  several  uninterrupted 
years  of  hard  work,  he  feared  that  a  break 
down  might  impend.  Moreover,  although  he 
was  greatly  puzzled  by  what  Duncan  said, 
he  did  not  in  the  least  indicate  it,  but  was 
content  merely  with  saying  to  himself : 
"  Strange !  Some  profound  mystery  !  Devel 
opments  later  that  will  surprise  everybody  1 " 

When  the  eastbound  transcontinental  mail 
pulled  in,  Duncan,  with  the  tenderness  of  a 
girl,  saw  that  John's  belongings  were  snugly 
bestowed  in  the  sleeper;  presented  him  with 
an  elegant  edition  of  Burns'  poems  as  a  part 
ing  gift ;  bade  him  good-bye  with  a  voice  that 
choked ;  as  the  train,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
giant  Kockies,  climbed  toward  the  Divide, 
stood  watching  it  until  it  plunged  into  a 
canon;  and  then,  looking  up  into  the  open 
sky,  whispered  to  himself  words  which  were 
obviously  those  of  most  heartfelt  prayer. 

But — for  he  had  yet  an  hour  to  wait  for  his 
own  train,  and  this  was  Duncan  all  over — he 
ended  his  prayer  quickly,  strode  up  a  neigh 
boring  gulch,  seated  himself  upon  a  boulder 
in  a  secluded  spot,  and  thus  soliloquized : 
"  Yes —it  will  do.  I  think  I  see  him  when  he 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    327 

finds  it  out! — he  that  offered  three-quarters 
of  a  million  for  a  fifth  of  the  stock! — of 
course  he  did  not  pay  it — and  that  warned 
Hope  and  MacDonald  against  stockholders' 
meetings  !  It  will  do— yes."  Thereupon  he 
laughed  until  the  tears  ran  down  his  face,  and 
until  he  rubbed  his  sides  for  their  aching. 

He  ticketed  for  San  Francisco.  He  spent 
three  weeks  along  the  Pacific  coast,  which  he 
had  not  seen,  visiting  some  of  its  many  at 
tractive  places,  and  being  especially  moved  by 
the  old  missions  of  the  Mexican  days.  He 
read,  in  this  connection,  everything  he  could 
lay  hold  of,  by  "  H.  H.,"  and  got  from  a  pub 
lic  library  certain  old  tales  in  the  same  tem 
per,  including  the  "Saxe  Holm's  Stories." 
Their  rare  insight  into  the  life  of  love  clari 
fied  his  thinking  on  that  subject,  comforted 
him,  and  greatly  steadied  him  to  be  strong 
and  to  wait. 

On  the  tenth  of  July,  he  took  passage  for 
Australia  by  a  steamer  which  called  at  Hono 
lulu.  He  withheld  himself  almost  altogether 
from  acquaintance  and  even  from  conversa 
tion  on  board  ship.  The  one  exception  to  this 
was  his  room  steward.  This  man  he  found  to 


328          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

be  very  intelligent,  earnest  of  spirit,  and,  as 
they  grew  better  acquainted,  a  devoted  Chris 
tian.  The  man  had  a  family  dependent  upon 
him.  He  had  seen  better  days.  The  after 
noon  of  the  day  before  they  sighted  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  Duncan  said  to  him  in  the 
most  casual  way :  "  I  have  never  seen  these 
islands,  and  ought,  properly,  to  stop  over  one 
or  two  ships  in  order  to  visit  them.  During 
the  hours  that  the  ship  remains  in  port,  I  am 
proposing  a  pretty  full  run  out  into  the 
country ;  and,  of  course,  it  may  happen  that  I 
shall  be  belated.  In  that  case,  will  you  kindly 
say  as  little  about  it  as  possible,  to  avoid  mak 
ing  me  appear  ridiculous,  and  see  that  my  lug 
gage  is  put  on  shore  ?  The  two  small  trunks 
and  the  suit  case  are  marked  distinctly  with  a 
Maltese  cross.  Do  not,  however,  attend  to 
this,  please,  until  the  last  moment,  lest  I 
should  come  hurrying  in  with  only  time  to 
reembark,  and  without  a  minute  to  have  the 
luggage  brought  back  again." 

The  ship  made  the  beautiful  harbor  in 
the  early  forenoon,  and  lay  there  until  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Duncan's  room 
steward — whom  he  had  presented  with  a  large 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    329 

fee,  saying,  "  You  are  carrying  a  heavy  load, 
and  you  will  not  mind,  will  you,  if  I  lend  you 
a  hand  in  this  way  ?  " — kept  careful  watch  up 
to  the  last  moment,  and,  five  minutes  before 
the  sailing,  as  Duncan  was  nowhere  in  sight, 
sent  the  luggage  ashore.  Duncan  did  not  ap 
pear,  the  ship  sailed,  and  the  room  steward 
saw  him  no  more. 

Duncan,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  reader 
will  have  surmised,  had  no  intention  of  re 
turning  to  the  ship.  He  went  straight  out 
into  the  country  instead,  and  there  secluded 
himself  for  several  weeks.  Then  he  returned 
to  Honolulu,  registered  at  its  principal  hotel 
under  the  name  of  Thomas  Bennett,  and 
claimed  his  luggage  by  the  mark  upon  it  of 
the  Maltese  cross.  His  appearance,  on  his 
return  from  his  seclusion,  was  so  completely 
changed  that  some  passengers  by  his  steamer, 
who  remained  in  Honolulu  and  even  at  the 
same  hotel,  failed  to  recognize  him.  He  let 
his  heavy  beard  grow  ;  assiduously  cultivated 
striking  side-whiskers ;  ate  like  a  gormand ; 
refrained  from  exercise,  so  far  as  he  could  do 
so  without  positively  injuring  his  health  ;  and 
put  on  flesh  at  the  rate  of  several  pounds  a 


33°          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

week.  "  I  did  not  take  first-class  honors  in 
biology  at  Edinburgh  for  nothing,"  he  would 
say  to  himself  before  his  looking-glass,  and 
then  he  would  laugh. 

Though  his  headquarters  were  at  Honolulu 
until  January,  his  time  was  spent  at  a  number 
of  points,  and  on  a  variety  of  excursions 
through  the  islands.  He  retained  his  room  at 
his  Honolulu  hotel,  paid  his  bills  with  punctil 
ious  promptness,  and  only  attracted  attention 
by  the  circumstance  of  his  extreme  quiet  and 
of  his  receiving  no  mail.  When  some  one  in 
nocently  inquired  whether  all  his  friends  had 
forgotten  him,  he  stated  that  he  had  expressly 
arranged  not  to  receive  correspondence,  in 
order  that  he  might  the  more  completely  give 
himself  up  to  a  much  needed  rest. 

When,  in  January,  Thomas  Bennett  sailed 
for  Melbourne,  he  weighed  nearly,  sixty  pounds 
more  than  when  he  landed,  was  brown  as  a 
nut,  and  had  the  bearing,  accent,  and  general 
appearance  of  a  portly  English  gentleman  of 
wealth  and  leisure,  who,  those  who  knew  him 
supposed,  had  been  badly  overworked,  and 
whose  seclusion  and  efforts  at  recuperation 
had  been  crowned  with  astonishing  success. 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    331 

"  I  wish  you  would  give  me  your  recipe  for 
quiet  living  and  flesh-gaining,"  was  a  remark 
often  made  to  him. 

We  have  been  present  on  the  evening  of  his 
arrival  at  Melbourne,  and  have  been  witnesses 
of  the  extraordinary  scene  at  the  Opera  House, 
in  which,  to  his  amazement,  he  was  a  sharer. 
He  had  intended  to  remain  in  Australia  for 
some  time,  and  thence  to  proceed  to  South 
Africa ;  but  the  words  he  heard  at  the  Opera 
House  quickened  his  pace,  and  he  took  passage 
by  the  next  ship  that  sailed  for  Liverpool.  He 
ticketed,  however,  only  as  far  as  Port  Said, 
gave  himself  three  weeks  in  Egypt  and  the 
Holy  Land,  and  then  sailed  for  Italy.  From 
there,  as  swiftly  as  possible,  he  made  his  way 
by  rail  to  Havre,  and  thence  sailed  for  New 
York,  where  he  landed  in  the  latter  part  of 
March. 

Meantime  he  had  continued  to  put  on  flesh 
and  to  affect  the  bearing  of  an  English 
gentleman.  He  took  elegant  bachelor  quar 
ters  in  the  metropolis,  and  immediately  began 
doing  something  in  stocks  and  cultivating  as 
siduously  the  acquaintance  of  moneyed  men, 
though  with  a  quiet  and  reserve  that,  particu- 


332  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

larly  in  view  of  the  style  of  the  man,  surprised 
all  who  came  to  know  him.  He  did  exceed 
ingly  well  in  his  Wall  Street  operations;  so 
much  so  as  to  attract  attention. 

"  Uncommon  man,  that  Bennett,"  said  a 
leading  man  of  the  street ;  "a  complete 
stranger,  and  yet  investing  like  an  old  hand ; 
he's  a  man  to  cultivate."  This  remark  was 
repeated,  in  differing  phraseology,  scores  of 
times  before  the  grass  in  the  parks  required 
cutting. 

The  degree  to  which  Thomas  Bennett's  ac 
quaintance  bore  cultivation  was  astonishing. 
He  was  gentlemanly,  affable,  full  of  good 
stories,  on  the  search  constantly  for  informa 
tion,  extremely  reticent  about  himself,  helpful 
on  many  sides  to  those  about  him,  and  soon 
grew  to  be  very  much  of  a  favorite  in  the 
select  circle  which  he  admitted  to  a  certain  in 
timacy.  He  was  an  enigma  to  them  all.  The 
only  direction  in  which  he  referred  to  himself 
was  in  mining  matters  ;  and  on  these  topics  he 
spoke  with  a  fulness,  an  aptness  of  illustra 
tion,  a  candor,  a  grip  of  the  subject,  and  a 
penetration,  which  led  swiftly  to  his  being 
much  consulted  about  mining  investments. 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    333 

During  the  interval  covered  by  this  chapter, 
matters  had  gone  from  bad  to  worse  at  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mine.  Before  the  snow  flew, 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  had  been  compelled  to 
discharge  Dunbar  McLean;  and  it  was  only 
by  some  extremely  clever  moves  that  the  lat 
ter  escaped  the  country  without  the  institu 
tion  of  criminal  proceedings  against  him.  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  appointed  in  his  place  a  man 
named  Williams,  but,  though  plodding  and 
faithful,  he  was  not  at  all  adequate  to  so  im 
portant  a  position.  He  knew  enough  of  his 
business,  however,  to  be  able  to  report  the 
havoc  which  Dunbar  McLean  had  wrought. 

For  Duncan  McLeod  had  not  left  the  for 
mula  in  modification  of  the  chemical  process 
for  extracting  gold  and  silver  on  which  the 
mine  paid  a  royalty,  and  which  he  had  im 
proved  upon  to  a  very  marked  degree ;  and,  in 
order  to  keep  up  dividends,  Dunbar  McLean 
had  ceased  development  work  almost  alto 
gether,  and  had  mined  here  and  there  where 
he  could  find  pockets  of  very  rich  ore.  The 
effect  of  this  on  the  whole  underground  situa 
tion  was  something  fearful.  It  took  the  new 
assistant  general  manager  more  than  two 


334          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

months  to  get  the  levels  properly  cleared  and 
into  adequate  operation ;  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  as  the  aftermath  of  Dunbar  McLean's 
administration,  the  esprit  de  corps  of  the  mine 
was  so  low,  and  the  skill  of  the  workers  so 
slight,  that  not  until  February  did  the  mine 
get  back  to  a  point  where  it  met  its  expenses. 
This,  moreover,  made  no  account  of  large  out 
lays  which  Dunbar  McLean's  extravagant 
management,  ill-advised  schemes  for  pushing 
the  mine,  and  so  forth,  had  obliged  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  to  undergo;  for  that  financier 
was  so  chagrined  at  this  outcome  of  his 
regime,  that  he  himself  met  the  bills,  and  did 
not  assess  the  other  stockholders.  During  the 
month  or  two  following,  while  the  mine  paid 
its  way,  there  were  no  dividends  and  no  pros 
pects  of  any  in  the  near  future. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp — who,  it  should  be 
stated,  had  never  seen  Duncan  McLeod — was 
at  first  indignant,  then  anxious,  and  then  de 
spondent.  "  Oh,  that  I  could  find  a  suitable 
man  to  put  in  charge  of  that  property  !  "  he 
said,  among  his  set,  over  and  over  again. 
About  the  first  of  May,  one  of  his  friends  sug 
gested  the  query,  whether  Thomas  Bennett 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    335 

were  not  his  man ;  and  the  always  alert  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp  began,  first  to  look  him  up, 
and  then  to  cultivate  him.  This  he  did 
swiftly,  and  in  a  way  highly  satisfactory  to 
himself,  except  in  one  particular.  "What  is 
Bennett's  record  ?  What  mines  has  he  been 
with  ?  Can  he  refer  to  John  Hays  Hammond, 
or  to  any  other  well  known  South  African  or 
Australian  expert  ?  "  the  great  man  asked. 

"It  is  singular,"  replied  his  friend,  "but 
Bennett  is  obviously  an  extremely  reserved 
man,  out  of  whom  nothing  can  be  got  about 
his  past  record.  In  most  men  this  would  be 
ground  for  suspicion.  In  Bennett's  case,  how 
ever,  I  know  him  so  well,  and  others  in  whom 
I  have  confidence  so  thoroughly  believe  in 
him,  that  I  am  almost  absolutely  sure  of  his 
integrity,  of  his  ability,  and  especially  of  his 
great  capacity  in  mining  matters.  Sharp,  you 
yourself,  or  I,  if  we  were  going  to  London  or 
to  Berlin,  might  choose,  as  a  mere  idiosyncrasy, 
to  shut  our  mouths  like  clams  about  our  rec 
ords,  and  yet  that  would  be  nothing  against 
us." 

The  next  evening  the  captain  of  finance  had 
Thomas  Bennett  to  dine,  and  was  completely 


336          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

won  by  him.  His  bearing,  the  clear  evi 
dences  of  integrity  and  noble  living  in  the 
man,  his  facility  in  conversation,  the  wide 
range  of  his  information,  his  astuteness  about 
mining  matters,  and  a  certain  winsome  per 
sonal  charm,  fairly  "  carried  "  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp. 

"Mr.  Bennett,  may  I  tell  you  about  my 
mine  ?  "  asked  the  latter,  when  they  were  in 
his  den. 

"Certainly,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear,"  an 
swered  Thomas  Bennett. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  then  went  elaborately 
into  the  story  of  his  sorrows  and  misfortunes, 
now  of  nearly  a  year's  continuance,  in  con 
nection  with  the  Annie  Laurie  camp.  "  Mr. 
Bennett,"  he  concluded,  "  from  all  that  I  can 
learn  about  you,  and  from  our  conversation 
this  evening,  I  feel  sure  that  you  are  the  one 
person  who  can  put  that  mine  again  on  its 
feet.  I  am  willing  to  pay  you  a  high  salary, 
and  I  am  hoping  you  will  do  me  the  kind 
ness  to  accept  my  proposition." 

"I  am  not,  Mr.  Sharp,"  Thomas  Bennett  re 
plied,  "one  who  desires  a  large  salary.  The 
mine,  in  fact,  can  hardly  afford  to  pay  such  a 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    337 

salary,  if  it  is  in  the  condition  in  which  you 
represent  it  to  be.  I  shall  be  glad,  on  the  con 
trary,  to  undertake  the  work  at  whatever 
salary  was  paid  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  en 
terprise  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  not 
willing  to  put  my  experience  and  life  into  that 
work  without  owning  some  appreciable  por 
tion  of  the  stock." 

This  was  a  poser  for  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp. 
He  was  sure  he  could  not  yield  that  point. 
He  argued,  cogently  and  persistently,  but 
Thomas  Bennett  was  inflexible.  They  parted 
without  coming  to  any  agreement.  Early  the 
next  morning,  however,  a  messenger  called  at 
Thomas  Bennett's  apartments,  and  asked  him 
to  come,  as  soon  as  he  conveniently  could,  to 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  office. 

"  How  much  stock  do  you  want  ?  "  inquired 
the  captain  of  finance,  when  Thomas  Bennett 
arrived. 

"  You  say  that  the  face  value  of  the  shares, 
before  the  change  of  management,  was  twenty- 
five  hundred  dollars ;  that,  at  that  time,  they 
had  a  much  higher  value ;  and  that  there  are 
only  one  hundred  shares?"  rejoined  Thomas 
Bennett. 

22 


338          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Exactly,"  answered  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Sharp,  if  I  undertake  this  work," 
said  Thomas  Bennett,  "  I  shall  make  it  a  suc 
cess  ;  and,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  I  would 
not  touch  it  without  the  right  to  acquire  a 
quarter  interest.  But,  as  you  are  anxious  not 
to  diminish  your  holdings  too  much,  I  am  will 
ing  to  take  a  sixth  interest,  or,  to  avoid  frac 
tions,  fifteen  shares,  and  to  pay  you  their  face 
value,  which,  so  nearly  as  I  can  learn,  exceeds 
their  worth,  as  the  mine  has  for  some  time 
been  doing." 

"  And  how  will  you  pay  me  ?  "  asked  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp. 

"I  will  give  you  my  check  at  once  for  the 
total  amount  on  the  First  National  Bank,"  re 
plied  Thomas  Bennett. 

"  Draw  it,"  cried  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  and 
check  and  certificate  of  stock  exchanged 
places. 

"  How  soon  can  you  take  hold  at  the  mine  ?  " 
inquired  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp. 

"  I  shall  need  to  give  a  few  weeks  to  some 
other  matters,"  said  Thomas  Bennett ;  "  but, 
by  the  first  of  July,  Mr.  Sharp,  I  think  I  can 
be  on  the  ground  to  begin  work." 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    339 

"  That  will  do  admirably,"  exclaimed  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp,  rubbing  his  hands.  "Be 
tween  now  and  that  time  I  shall  be  able  to 
close  out  matters  with  the  present  incumbent, 
and  have  everything  in  shape  for  you  to  take 
up  the  work." 

The  two  men  parted.  That  afternoon 
Thomas  Bennett  sailed  for  Liverpool.  When 
the  pilot  went  over  the  ship's  side  at  Sandy 
Hook,  he  bore  in  his  letter  bag  this  communi 
cation  to  John  Hope : 

" /S.  S.  Teutonic,  Down  the  Bay}  May  15. 
"  MY  DEAR  JOHN  : 

"  Shake  !  Oh,  that  we  might  shake,  and 
might  pound  each  other,  and  laugh  to  our 
heart's  content !  Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  I 
should  burst.  About  what  ?  Let  we  tell 
you. 

"I  have  reappeared  in  the  world.  This, 
however,  is  the  first  moment.  I  did  not  study 
biology  to  no  profit.  I  have  been  in  New 
York  for  some  time  as  a  portly  English  gen 
tleman,  Thomas  Bennett  by  name,  operating 
somewhat  in  "Wall  Street, — a  business  I  hate ; 
but  I  did  nothing  not  strictly  honorable, — 


340          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

and,  especially,  cultivating  the  acquaintance 
of  men  interested  in  mines.  Some  of  them 
were  friends  of  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp.  They 
thought  I  could  get  him  out  of  his  troubles. 
After  considerable  negotiation,  we  came  to  an 
understanding.  He  offered  me  a  high  salary, 
which  I  maintained  that  the  mine  could  not 
afford  to  pay.  All  I  asked  was  such  compen 
sation  as  the  mine's  early  pay-roll  called  for. 
But  I  was  inflexible  on  one  point,  namely, 
that  he  should  sell  me  fifteen  shares  of  Annie 
Laurie  stock.  He  was  resolute,  at  first,  not  to 
do  this ;  but,  at  nine-thirty  this  morning,  I 
gave  him  my  check  on  the  First  National  Bank 
for  thirty -seven  thousand,  five  hundred  dollars, 
and  my  certificate  for  the  fifteen  shares  of 
stock  is  at  that  bank,  to  be  called  for  by  John 
Hope.  This,  if  the  old  conditions  have  not 
otherwise  changed,  leaves  the  present  holdings 
of  stock  as  follows  : 

Sharp 40  shares. 

Hope, 30  shares. 

McLeod, 25  shares. 

MacDonald, 5  shares. 

"If  I  am  correct  in  this  assumption,  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  have  an  edifying  annual 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    341 

meeting  of  the  stockholders,  June  3,  notwith 
standing  the  warning  the  great  man  gave  you 
against  such  gatherings. 

"  I  am  going  to  see  my  mother,  but  shall  be 
in  New  York  not  later  than  June  10,  ready  to 
take  hold  with  you  along  any  lines  that  may 
seem  best;  that  is,  assuming  that  the  stock 
is  as  above  indicated.  Cable  me  fully  at 
Queenstown,  please,  using  the  old  cipher;  and 
manage  until  my  return  according  to  your  own 
sweet  will. 

"  I  have  had,  I  ought  to  say  in  conclusion, 
some  compunctions  about  using  an  assumed 
name.  It  is  the  only  respect,  however,  since 
we  parted,  in  which  rny  conduct  has  been 
questionable.  But  Joseph  did  virtually  the 
same  thing  with  his  brethren,  to  the  good  of 
them  and  of  everybody ;  and,  in  war,  no  reason 
able  person  would  for  a  moment  hesitate  to  do 
it.  That  is  to  say,  there  are  honorable  duties 
of  a  spy ;  we  praise  Nathan  Hale  and  Major 
Andre ;  and  what  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  levied 
on  us,  and  on  some  hundreds  of  souls  closely 
associated  with  us,  was  nothing  less  than  war, 
and  that  of  a  most  unjustifiable,  venomous 
and  cruel  sort.  Such  action,  on  his  part,  in 


342  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

my  judgment,— and  I  have  been  entirely  con 
scientious  in  this  whole  matter, — ought  not  to 
be  given  place  to,  no,  not  for  an  hour.  And, 
John,  believe  me,  from  my  shaking  hands 
good-bye  with  you,  June  16,  last,  until  now,  I 
have  not  for  one  hour  given  place  to  that  in 
carnation  of  the  devil  which  the  policy  of  Mr. 
Bonaporte  Sharp  constitutes.  My  course 
agrees,  also,  with  my  old-time  contention, 
'  That  not  all  people  have  a  right  to  the  truth.' 
"  With  my  love  to  the  Old  Guard,  as  fast  as 
you  may  be  communicating  with  its  members, 
and  with  a  devotion  to  you  that  knows  no 
bounds,  I  am  — 

"  Always  yours, 

"  DUNCAN  McLEOD." 

When  John  Hope  received  this  letter  the 
next  forenoon,  that  alw'ays  self -mastered  man 
went  almost  wild.  He  sent  his  bookkeeper, 
his  stenographer  and  his  office  boy  on  a  holi 
day  till  the  next  morning.  He  posted  a  no 
tice  reading,  "  Office  Closed  Until  To-morrow," 
and  doubly  locked  the  outside  door.  He  even 
bolted  the  door  of  his  inner  office.  Then,  be 
hind  it,  he  danced,  he  sang,  he  laughed,  he 


CiKUS 


HE    SANG,    HE    LAUGHED,    HE    CRIED" 


Bonaparte  Sharp  Catches  a  Tartar    343 

cried,  he  opened  his  Bible,  laid  it  down  on  a 
chair,  and,  kneeling  over  it  there,  poured  out 
his  soul  in  such  a  volume  of  thanksgiving  as 
had  never  before  escaped  even  his  lips.  Then 
he  picked  himself  together.  He  sat  calmly 
down.  He  closed  his  eyes.  Thus  for  the  rest 
of  the  day  he  sat  motionless  and  engaged  in 
profound  thought,  save  that,  thrice,  he  paced 
the  room  for  perhaps  a  half  hour.  At  five 
o'clock  he  opened  his  eyes,  closed  his  desk,  left 
his  office,  and  sent  this  telegram,  in  cipher,  to 
Mary  Hope  at  Fall  Kiver : 

"The  counsel  of  Ahithophel  is  defeated.  Duncan  Mo- 
Leod  and  John  Hope  control  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine.  The 
men,  scattered  far  abroad,  will  be  on  duty  at  the  mine  July  1. 
God  is  good,  my  mother.  Join  me  in  thanksgivings,  and 
pray  that  Duncan  and  I  may  be  granted  wisdom,  grace  and 
power  to  do  God's  work  in  the  industrial-economic  world." 


XXII 

HIS  BLANK  WALL  EISES  AGAIN 

'HEN  the  Tartar  had  been 
caught  by  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp,  he  kept  his  head, 
save  in  one  particular. 

At  five  o'clock  of  John 
Hope's  tumultuous  day, 
when  he  came  to  unlock 
the  door  of  his  outer 
office,  he  found  the  after 
noon's  accumulation  of 
mail  lying  on  the  floor 
beneath  the  letter  slot. 
Each  letter  had  its  return 
mark  printed  in  its  upper  left  corner,  and 
was  clearly  of  a  business  nature,  except  one. 
This  was  in  a  plain,  cheap  envelope ;  inclosed, 
obviously,  equally  cheap  letter-paper;  and 
was  apparently  addressed  by  some  awkward 
farmer,  in  a  crabbed  hand  which  was  per 
fectly  legible,  but  which  permitted  itself 

344 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again      345 

several  angles  of  inclination.  The  letter  was 
somewhat  crumpled  and  soiled,  and  was  post 
marked  Morristown,  "N.  J.  John  threw  the 
rest  of  the  mail  upon  a  table,  but  thrust  this 
letter  into  his  pocket,  supposing  that  it  was 
from  some  rural  correspondent,  and  that  he 
might  extract  some  amusement  from  it  while 
he  dined.  It  resulted,  however,  in  his  not 
dining  at  all. 

For,  when  he  had  sent  the  telegram  to  his 
mother,  had  boarded  an  uptown  Elevated 
train,  and  had  reached  Chambers  Street,  he 
bethought  him  of  the  letter,  tore  it  open, 
glanced  it  through,  got  off  at  the  next  station, 
took  the  next  downtown  train,  alighted,  sent 
his  mother  a  second  telegram,  bought  a  sand 
wich  from  a  stand  at  a  street  corner,  and,  re 
turning  to  his  office,  ate  the  sandwich,  and  did 
not  emerge  to  the  outer  world  until  nearly 
midnight.  The  second  telegram,  which,  like 
the  first,  was  in  cipher,  read : 

"  Earlier  message  strictly  confidential  until  after  June 
third.  Tell  nobody.  Do  n't  refer  to  it  even  in  writing  me. " 

The  letter  from  Duncan  McLeod,  received 
in  the  forenoon,  and  which  we  have  been  per 
mitted  to  read,  was  on  elegant  White  Star 


346          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

stationery,  which  comported  with  Duncan's 
own,  for  he  was  punctilious  in  such  matters. 
This  letter  was  from  Duncan,  too,  and  in  his 
usual  handwriting,  excepting  the  address. 
When  John  Hope  had  read  it,  he  understood 
that  its  cheap  stationery,  like  its  rustic  ex 
terior,  was  a  part  of  Thomas  Bennett's  art, 
and  not  to  be  attributed  to  Duncan  McLeod. 
He  also  inferred  that  the  pilot  had  come 
at  once  up  the  harbor ;  had  promptly  and 
properly  deposited  his  regular  steamer  mail  at 
the  New  York  post-office,  as  the  postmark  on 
the  White  Star  envelope  indicated;  but  had 
left  in  his  pocket  this  epistle,  handed  him  as 
he  went  down  the  ship's  side,  and  had  forgot 
ten  it  until  reaching  Morristown, — where  he 
not  improbably  lived.  It  was  hardly  legible 
because  of  the  haste  in  which  it  had  been 
written.  It  read  as  follows : 

"  &  £  Teutonic,  May  15,  Later. 
"Thomas  Bennett,  like  Melchisedec,  has 
neither  beginning  of  days,  nor  end  of  life. 
No  one  but  himself  was  ever  to  have  known 
whence  he  came,  or  whither  he  went,  not 
even  his  mother. 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again      347 

"But  when  the  Teutonic  got  below  the 
Battery,  this  perfect  day,  under  the  afternoon 
sun,  the  city,  the  East  Eiver  and  its  bridge, 
Brooklyn,  the  North  Kiver,  the  Palisades, 
Hoboken,  Jersey  City,  Bergen  Hill,  Staten 
Island,  the  shimmering  green  ridge  of  Orange 
Mountain,  the  forts,  the  Narrows,  the  sea  be 
yond, — they  simply  *  carried'  me.  I  accord 
ingly  threw  caution  to  the  winds ;  locked  my 
self  in  my  stateroom ;  wrote  you  as  I  did. 
*  Better  tell  the  whole  thing,  glory  over  our 
enemy,  glory  in  the  deed  ourselves,  if  we  care 
to,'  I  said.  In  fact,  I  was  so  sure  on  this 
point,  that,  without  one  compunction,  I  sealed 
the  letter,  dropped  it  into  the  pilot's  bag  in 
the  main  saloon,  and  gave  myself  up  to  enjoy 
ing  our  getting  out  to  sea.  I  did  so  even 
until  we  had  passed  Quarantine. 

"Then,  thank  God!  I  came  to  myself. 
The  pilot's  bag  had  been  taken;  he  himself 
would  drop  to  his  skiff  in  twenty  minutes ; 
it  was  too  late  to  recover  the  letter;  there 
fore  this.  Also,  inclosed  with  this,  the 
letter  which  I  had  planned  to  send,  that 
you  may  see  how  secretive  I  meant  to  be. 
I  see  the  pilot  already  preparing  to  leave 


348          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  bridge.  I  will  give  this  to  him  as  he 
drops  off. 

"  Tell  nobody.  Divulge  nothing  until  June 
3.  Let  Bonaparte  Sharp  lead  then,  and  show 
his  cards  if  he  will.  Even  after  he  has  done 
that,  tell  nothing,  but  simply  vote  my  stock. 
We  deal  with  a  treacherous  enemy.  If  profit- 
sharing  maddened  him,  what  will  not  be  his 
sentiments  toward  Thomas  Bennett?  Besides, 
to  look  on  the  serious  side  of  any  glorying 
over  him  that  might  be  proper,  no  judgment 
on  such  a  man  can  equal  a  mysterious  and  in 
explicable  one.  His  forces  are  material,  and 
are  capable  of  being  accurately  gauged.  Let 
him  seem  to  himself,  on  the  contrary,  to  have 
been  challenged  and  worsted  by  forces  imma 
terial  and  incapable  of  measurement.  Noth 
ing  that  we  can  do  will  so  move  him  as  that, 
and  for  his  good,  let  us  hope. 

"  Pilot  is  going.  I  return  by  the  Eiver  St. 
Lawrence — shall  give  New  York  wide  berth 
— do  n't  cable  or  write  me — will  wire  from  St. 

Paul. 

«D.  McL." 

The  letter — "  inclosed "  that  John  Hope 
might  "see  how  secretive"  Duncan  McLeod 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again      349 

had  "meant  to  be" — was  entirely  typewrit 
ten,  excepting  the  initials  at  the  end,  which 
were  autograph ;  and  was  identical  in  station 
ery  and  address  with  the  Morristown  letter. 
It  was  as  follows : 

"  8.  S.  Teutonic,  Down  the  Bay,  May  15. 
"Kindly  call  at  First  National  Bank  for  package  of  in 
terest  to  you.  Please  use  it,  June  3,  to  utmost  advantage. 
I  am  on  way  to  see  my  mother.  Deemed  it  inexpedient  to 
send  you  so  little  even  as  this,  before  I  was  almost  at  sea. 
Tell  nothing  to  any  human  being.  Know  nothing.  Don't 
try  to  communicate  with  me.  On  or  about  June  15,  you 
are  likely  to  be  communicated  with. 

"D.  McL." 

The  gist  of  the  foregoing  was  what  Duncan 
McLeod  was  thinking  through,  during  both  of 
the  sleeping  acts  of  June  16  of  the  previous 
year,  when  he  and  John  Hope  were  quitting 
the  Annie  Laurie  Mine.  His  letter  to  his 
mother,  written  the  night  of  June  15,  a  part 
of  which  has  been  reproduced  for  us,  was 
already  in  the  mail  at  the  time  of  the  sleeping 
acts,  or  he  would  have  recalled  the  words- 
even  to  her,  and  extremely  vague  though  they 
were — about  Joseph's  conduct  toward  his 
brethren,  and  Duncan's  project  of  undertaking 
something  of  the  same  sort.  "  This  kind  of 
thing,  and  especially  in  dealing  with  a  man 


350          The  Annie    Laurie  Mine 

like  Bonaparte  Sharp,  would  better  be  known 
to  no  one  but  to  God,"  he  said  to  himself,  as 
he  opened  his  eyes  on  arriving  at  the  ranch 
where  he  and  John  Hope  breakfasted  that 
summer  morning,  so  beautiful,  so  heartbreak 
ing;  and  he  has  never  been  able  to  forgive 
himself,  since,  for  the  letter,  so  lightly  writ 
ten,  on  the  Teutonic's  stationery,  the  next 
May,  when  the  tables  were  beginning  to  turn. 

Cowardice,  it  need  hardly  be  added,  had  no 
part  in  this  secretiveness,  nor  in  the  return 
"  by  the  Eiver  St.  Lawrence,"  and  his  giving 
New  York  a  "  wide  berth."  Both  of  the 
latter  were  parts  of  his  original  plan,  from 
which  he  only  wavered  in  his  ecstasy  the 
afternoon  he  put  to  sea  after  Thomas  Bennett 
had  given  his  check  to  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp. 
His  only  motive,  in  this  entire  astute  pro 
gram,  was  to  effect,  with  a  certainty  the  more 
absolute,  the  ends  to  which  he  had  dedicated 
his  life. 

John  Hope  was  not  less  penetrating  or  fore- 
sighted  than  Duncan  McLeod ;  but,  although 
he  had  spent  several  hours  in  profound  thought 
on  the  entire  general  problem,  and  had  done 
so  to  excellent  purpose,  he,  like  Duncan,  had 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again 

been  so  "  carried  "  by  this  sudden  defeating  of 
"  the  counsel  of  Ahitbophel,"  as  he  character 
ized  it  to  his  mother,  that  he  only  got  Dun 
can's  point  of  view  when  he  read  the  Morris- 
town  letter.  This  was  why  he  dined  on  a 
sandwich,  and  did  not  leave  his  office  again 
until  nearly  midnight.  When  that  time  ar 
rived,  he  not  only  had  the  general  problem 
well  thought  through,  but  the  problem  at  its 
most  perilous  point,  namely,  anent  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp ;  and  Duncan  himself  could  not 
have  been  more  circumspect  than  was  John  in 
the  successive  steps  which  he  thenceforth  took. 
He  did  not,  for  example,  go  into  the  First 
National  Bank  for  a  week  after  the  Teutonic 
sailed.  Then  he  happened  in  on  important 
business  for  his  firm.  "  By  the  way,"  said  the 
president,  while  that  was  being  transacted,  "  I 
think  I  heard  one  of  our  tellers  say  that  a 
messenger  boy  left  a  package  for  you  in 
his  care  a  week  or  two  ago."  John  Hope 
seemed  hardly  to  notice  what  the  president 
said ;  talked  earnestly  on  points  connected 
with  the  business  that  had  brought  him  to 
the  bank ;  when  that  was  finished,  would  have 
left,  as  the  president  thought,  without  the 


352  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

package,  if  his  attention  had  not  been  drawn 
to  it  afresh ;  and,  finally,  took  it  with  an  air 
of  the  utmost  indifference. 

In  his  bolted  inner  office,  twenty  minutes 
later,  he  opened  it.  The  envelope  was  heavily 
sealed,  after  the  manner  of  valuable  express 
envelopes.  Its  address  was  typewritten.  It 
contained  nothing  but  the  certificate  of  stock, 
and  a  sheet  of  paper,  like  that  of  the  Morris- 
town  letter,  on  which  appeared  only  these 
words,  also  typewritten : 

"John  Hope  is  hereby  authorized  to  vote,  on  June  3,  and 
at  all  other  times,  my  twenty-five  shares  of  stock  of  the 
Annie  Laurie  Mining  Company. 

"DUNCAN  MCLEOD." 

The  signature,  however,  was  unmistakably 
in  Duncan's  handwriting.  The  certificate  of 
stock  was  indorsed,  in  a  uniform  hand : 

"Neu>  York,  May  15. 

11  For  value  received,  I  hereby  sell,  assign  and  transfer  to 
Duncan  McLeod,  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever,  the 
within  mentioned  fifteen  shares  of  stock  of  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mining  Company,  and  I  hereby  vest  in  him  all  powers 
thereto  pertaining. 

"  THOMAS  BENNETT." 

The  transfer  was  attested  by  a  well  known 
notary  public.  John  Hope  replaced  both 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again     353 

papers  in  their  envelope,  put  the  envelope  in 
an  inner  pocket,  took  his  hat,  went  straight  to 
his  safety  deposit  box  in  the  next  building,  and 
there  left  the  precious  inclosure  until  the 
morning  of  June  3. 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mining  Company,  of  that  date,  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  seemed  to  be  in  great  feather.  He  was 
bland,  cordial,  conversed  freely  with  the  stock 
holders,  and  told  good  stories.  After  the 
meeting  had  been  called  to  order,  and  some 
routine  business  had  been  transacted,  he  made 
this  speech,  as  if  "  from  the  throne  " : 

"  GENTLEMEN  : 

"  McLean  was  a  failure.  Perhaps 
he  was  a  criminal.  We  lost  money  under  him. 
I  discharged  him. 

"  His  successor,  Williams,  is  a  good  man. 
He  has  brought  the  mine  back  to  a  paying 
basis,  and  dividends  are  in  sight. 

"  I  hand  you  an  exhibit,  in  duplicate,  of  con 
ditions  and  moneys  to  date. 

"  Williams,  with  all  his  excellences,  lacks 
force.     I  am  happy  to  announce  that  I  have 
found  a  man  to  take  his  place.     Great  things, 
23 


354          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

I  am  confident,  may  be  expected  from  him. 
His  name  is  Thomas  Bennett.  He  will  enter 
on  his  duties,  July  1. 

"  I  nominate  and  vote  him  to  be  McLean's 
and  Williams'  successor,  and  myself  to  be 
president  and  general  manager ;  and  I  hope 
that  you  will  concur.  As  I  hear  no  objec 
tion," — here  he  paused  a  moment, — "  I  so 
declare  the  vote,  and  it  will  be  recorded  as 
unanimously  for  the  proposed  ticket.  Thank 
you,  gentlemen.  Nothing  like  harmony.  Is 
there  any  further  business  ?  " 

"  Summary  !  "  thought  Hugh  MacDonald. 

"May  we  vote  by  shares?"  inquired  John 
Hope. 

"  We  have  done  so,"  answered  the  chairman 
sternly  ;  "  fifty -five  shares  for  my  ticket,  and, 
as  I  understood  it,  and  have  ordered  it  re 
corded,  forty-five  also." 

"But  this  exhibit,"  exclaimed  Hugh  Mac- 
Donald,  whose  business  sense  was  outraged, 
and  who  missed  altogether  what  John  Hope 
was  driving  at — "But  this  exhibit  shows  an 
actual  deficit,  and  a  very  large  one,  except  for 
an  even  larger  cash  credit  from  an  unindicated 
source.  Is  there  no  explanation,  not  to  say 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again     355 

apology,  for  this  blind  sort  of  an  annual  re 
port,  and  for  no  dividends  for  nearly  a  year 
from  a  property  that,  until  your  sharp  practice 
captured  its  control,  yielded  handsome  and 
steadily  increasing  returns  ?  " 

"Sharp  practice  wherein?"  asked  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp. 

"To  say  nothing  of  your  course  of  pro 
cedure  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Wainwright,  in  your 
working,  sir,  on  Mrs.  Wilson's  feelings,  and  in 
your  buying  of  her,  almost  before  her  hus 
band's  dead  body  was  cold,  for  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars,  what  was  worth  forty  thou 
sand,"  replied  Hugh  MacDonald  with  scorn. 

"  I  flatly  deny  it ! "  cried  Mr.  Bonaparte 
Sharp  in  tones  of  thunder. 

"  Well,  how  about  cutting  off  our  handsome 
dividends  for  a  year  ?  "  continued  Hugh  Mac- 
Donald. 

"Liable  to  happen  any  time.  Happens 
again  and  again  in  many  enterprises,"  re 
torted  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  at  the  same  pitch. 

"  Never  happened  in  ours  until,  like  a  pirate, 
you  stole  its  management,  sir,"  rejoined  Hugh 
MacDonald  fiercely. 

"  Unparliamentary    language !  "    exclaimed 


356          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
and  pounding  savagely  with  his  gavel. 

"Is  there  not  a  prior  unparliamentary 
action,  sir,"  quietly  interposed  John  Hope, 
"  in  your  failing,  as  chairman  of  this  meeting, 
to  effect  its  annual  election  of  officers  by  a  vote 
of  stock  ?  " 

"  We  have  done  so,  did  n't  I  tell  you  ?  " 
roared  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp. 

"Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  poll  us, 
sir  ?  "  persisted  John. 

"Certainly,  if  your  time  counts  nothing; 
mine  is  worth  big  money,"  answered  the 
chairman,  sullenly,  and  then  proceeded,  snap 
pishly,  to  call  the  roll,  as  follows : 

"HughMacDonald?" 

"  Five  shares  for  Hope  and  McLeod." 

"John  Hope?" 

"  Thirty  shares  for  the  same." 

"  Duncan  McLeod  ?  " 

"Twenty -five  shares  for  the  same,  cast  by 
John  Hope,  holding  his  proxy." 

"  Which  makes  sixty,"  interjected  the  chair 
man,  with  a  sneer,  "  which  would  be  very  fine 
indeed,  sir,  and  would  elect  the  lunatic  ticket, 
if  onlv  McLeod  had  twenty-five,  but,  in  point 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again     357 

of  fact,  he  happens  to  own  but  ten.  Do  n't  try 
to  impose  on  me,  sir  ! " 

"  Here  are  Mr.  McLeod's  other  fifteen,  and 
my  authority  for  voting  them,"  said  John 
Hope,  in  the  calmest  manner  possible,  laying 
the  Bennett-McLeod  certificate  on  the  table, 
and  the  accompanying  indication  of  proxy, 
while  Hugh  MacDonald,  utterly  astounded, 
held  his  breath,  and  seized  tightly  the  arms  of 
his  chair. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  snatched  the  papers, 
read  them,  turned  purple,  then  turned  white, 
wiped  the  perspiration  from  his  brow,  and 
cried,  in  a  passionate  falsetto,  "A  forgery, 
sir ! " 

"That  is  a  serious  charge,  Mr.  Chairman," 
replied  John  Hope,  in  the  same  quiet,  master 
ful  way.  "  Will  you  deny,  sir,  that  you  own 
only  forty  shares  of  Annie  Laurie  stock  ;  that 
your  man,  Thomas  Bennett,  bought  from  you, 
at  a  fair  price,  his  fifteen  shares;  that  the 
memorandum  of  transfer  is  in  Thomas  Ben 
nett's  handwriting,  and  attested  by  a  prominent 
notary  public;  and  that,  if  Thomas  Bennett 
transferred  them,  Duncan  McLeod,  being  ab 
sent,  would  probably  give  me  the  proxy  which 


358          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

I  hold  in  my  hand  ?  In  other  words,  sir, 
you  please,  here  and  now,  without  further 
evasion  or  chicanery  whatsoever,  proceed  to 
vote  those  fifty-five  shares  of  stock  which,  a 
few  moments  ago,  you  declared,  and  reiter 
ated,  and  ordered  recorded,  to  have  been 
voted  for  your  ticket  ?  " 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  turned  ashen;  sat 
down;  buried  his  face  in  his  hands  over  the 
table;  shook  like  an  aspen  leaf;  pressed  his 
palms  tightly  against  his  temples,  as  if  to  pre 
vent  them  from  splitting ;  and,  in  the  awful 
silence  that  ensued,  seemed  to  stop  breathing. 
Then  he  gasped  ;  lifted  his  head ;  displayed  a 
small,  round,  deep  carmine  spot  at  the  center 
of  each  blanched  cheek ;  stammered ;  got  his 
voice ;  said,  brokenly,  as  if  dying,  "  I — declare 
— this  meeting — adjourned — until  ten  o'clock 
—to-morrow  morning " ;  and  staggered  from 
the  room. 

"  Let  us  follow  him !  He  will  fall  in  a  faint ! 
Did  you  not  notice  the  spots?"  exclaimed 
Hugh  MacDonald. 

"  Follow  him  not  at  all,"  said  John  Hope. 
"  When  the  iniquities  of  a  man  whose  heart  is 
harder  and  crueler  than  steel  are  finding  him 


His  Blank  Wall  Rises  Again     359 

out,  it  is  a  mistaken  kindness  to  interfere  with 
God's  work.  Pity  him,  pray  for  him,  want  to 
help  him,  as  you  and  I  both,  I  hope,  do,  but 
leave  him  in  God's  hands.  Those  two  carmine 
spots  should  help  him  more  than  we  possibly 
could  if  we  tried." 


XXIII 

THE  LAST  OF  BONAPAKTE  SHARP 

T  ten  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  June  4,  the  ad 
journed  annual  meeting 
'of  the  Annie  Laurie  Min 
ing  Company  was  held. 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  did 
not  appear.  By  a  vote  of 
sixty  shares,  and  none  opposing,  John  Hope 
and  Duncan  McLeod  were  reinstated,  were 
given  power  to  make  all  additional  appoint 
ments,  and  the  meeting  dissolved. 

Neither  on  June  3,  nor  on  June  4,  nor  later, 
would  John  Hope,  to  Hugh  MacDonald's 
puzzled  and  persistent  inquiries,  divulge  aught, 
except  to  say :  "  I  know,  Hugh,  almost  noth 
ing.  Our  deliverer,  whoever  he  may  be, 
wishes  that  it  should  be  so  with  me,  and  with 
us  all;  and,  as  honorable  men,  we  must  re 
spect  his  reticence.  But  two  things  I  do 

know :      First,  Bonaparte  Sharp  sold  the  fif- 
360 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      361 

teen  shares  for  as  large  a  price  as  they  were 
worth  at  the  time.  Second,  the  purchaser 
transferred  them,  legally  and  freely,  to 
Duncan  McLeod." 

The  afternoon  papers  of  June  4  represented 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  as  ill  from  overwork  ; 
and,  for  the  first  time  since  he  began  opera 
tions  in  Wall  Street,  and  in  his  specialties,  he 
ceased  to  be  a  malign  force  therein ;  for  the 
space,  however,  of  only  twenty  days.  Then, 
pale,  haggard,  slow  of  movement,  but  with  the 
same  set  jaw,  and  penetrating,  gray -yellowish, 
all-comprehending  eye,  he  began  making  up 
for  lost  time.  The  day  he  returned  was  a 
hard  one  in  Wall  Street.  No  man,  even  of 
his  intimate  friends,  ever  succeeded  in  getting 
from  him  any  information  about  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine,  except  the  ablest  criminal  law 
yer  in  New  York,  and  a  force  of  the  keenest 
and  most  experienced  detectives  that  money 
could  hire.  The  detectives,  even,  only  got 
their  knowledge  at  second-hand  through  the 
lawyer. 

After  many  months'  work,  and  enormous 
expenditures,  Thomas  Bennett  was  traced 
from  Honolulu,  by  way  of  Australia,  the 


362  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

Mediterranean  and  France,  to  New  York. 
Where  he  came  from  was  shrouded  in  mys 
tery.  He  sailed,  moreover,  from  New  York 
for  Liverpool  by  the  Teutonic  on  May  15; 
was  a  cheerful  shipmate,  but  ate  next  to  noth 
ing  and  rapidly  lost  flesh  all  the  voyage  ;  had 
no  other  peculiarity,  except  that,  on  one  oc 
casion,  he  was  found  by  himself  laughing  im 
moderately  for  no  apparent  reason,  and  ex 
plained,  when  questioned,  that  an  old  story 
had  come  to  his  mind,  which,  however,  he 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  repeat,  though 
strongly  urged  to  do  so  later  by  the  entire 
smoking  room ;  disembarked  at  Queenstown ; 
went,  by  Cork  and  Mallow  Junction,  to  the 
Lakes  of  Killarney ;  that  very  afternoon,  just 
before  a  fierce  thunder-storm  broke  over  the 
Lakes,  went  rowing  upon  them  alone ;  was 
never  seen  more;  and  left  no  trace  behind 
him  except  an  upset  and  damaged  boat, 
ashore  on  the  Upper  Lake,  and  some  luggage 
marked  only  by  Maltese  crosses,  found  at  his 
hotel,  and  brought  to  JSTew  York, — not,  how 
ever,  until  the  detectives  had  settled  his  frac 
tion  of  a  day's  bill,  and  had  paid  for  the 
damage  done  to  the  boat.  Mr.  Bonaparte 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      363 

Sharp  locked  that  luggage  in  a  vault,  but  the 
foremost  detectives  in  the  world  failed  to  get 
from  it  any  clue  whatsoever  as  to  Thomas 
Bennett's  identity,  his  origin,  or  his  fate,  be 
yond  the  presumption  of  his  having  been 
drowned  in  the  Upper  Lake  at  Killarney. 

It  was  found  that  Duncan  McLeod,  on  the 
other  hand,  sailed  from  San  Francisco,  July 
10,  of  the  previous  year ;  disappeared  there 
after,  in  search  of  rest,  somewhere  in  southern 
latitudes ;  reappeared  in  Scotland  on  or  about 
June  3 ;  spent  twenty-four  hours  at  Stirling ; 
sailed  the  afternoon  of  June  4  from  Glasgow 
for  Montreal,  his  movements  becoming  trans 
parently  clear  thenceforth;  and  went  from 
Montreal,  by  the  Sault  Sainte  Marie,  St.  Paul, 
Omaha  and  Denver,  to  take  up  his  duties 
afresh  at  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine. 

The  detectives  were  perfectly  sure  that  the 
two  men  nowise  resembled  each  other.  They 
took  dozens  of  snap  shots  of  Duncan  McLeod, 
and  had  the  photographs  inspected  by  a  score 
of  persons  in  New  York,  who  had  known 
Thomas  Bennett  well, — in  fact,  some  of  the 
detectives  had  themselves  shadowed  Bennett, 
on  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp's  orders,  while  the 


364          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

latter  was  making  preliminary  inquiries  about 
him, — but  no  one  could  be  found  who  was 
able  to  discern  any  resemblance  between  the 
two. 

Some  connection  between  the  two  men  was 
suspected,  but  no  evidence  of  it  anywhere 
appeared.  What  the  connection  was,  if  it  ex 
isted  at  all,  defied  conjecture  even.  The  rec 
ords  of  both  men  were  found  to  have  been 
not  only  irreproachable,  but  highly  commend 
able.  They  were  both,  the  detectives  felt 
certain,  in  JSTew  York  on  May  15,  because 
Thomas  Bennett  not  only  bought  his  stock 
that  day,  and  sailed  by  the  Teutonic  there 
after,  but  made,  in  the  meantime,  a  genuine 
transfer  of  the  stock,  as  proved  by  his  hand 
writing,  which  was  like  copperplate,  and 
which  was  verified  as  unmistakably  his  by 
twenty  or  thirty  of  his  undoubted  letters  that 
had  been  painstakingly  collected,  and  then 
most  carefully  scrutinized  by  experts.  Dun 
can  McLeod's  signature  to  his  proxy,  though 
without  date,  was,  furthermore,  undoubtedly 
genuine ;  and  was  left,  with  the  certificate  of 
stock,  by  a  district  messenger,  at  the  First 
National  Bank  at  noon  on  the  same  day.  It 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      365 

was,  indeed,  possible,  the  detectives  conceded, 
that  Thomas  Bennett  had  somehow  obtained 
possession  of  this  proxy  earlier,  and  sent  it  to 
the  bank  on  May  15 ;  but  the  freshness  of  the 
paper  on  which  it  was  written,  of  the  type 
written  impression,  and  of  the  signature,  made 
this  in  their  opinion  extremely  improbable. 

"Beats  the  Arabian  Nights!"  said  Mr. 
Bonaparte  Sharp.  "Bring  in  your  bills;  I 
give  it  up."  He  only  said  this,  however,  to 
the  lawyer  who  had  represented  him  on  the 
case  from  June  until  April  of  the  next  year. 
He  maintained  absolute  silence,  otherwise, 
about  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,  even  to  his  con 
fidential  man.  He  held  on,  nevertheless,  to 
his  forty  shares  of  Annie  Laurie  stock  as  if 
they  had  for  him  some  special  fascination. 
He  did  this,  as  he  said  to  himself,  "in  the 
interest  of  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  society  "  > 
and  also,  perhaps,  because,  notwithstanding  the 
"  lunacy,"  as  he  characterized  it,  of  the  mine's 
management,  it  paid  him  large  and  steadily 
increasing  dividends. 

Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  was  not  superstitious. 
Duncan  McLeod  was  right,  however,  in  main 
taining  that  no  judgment  which  could  be 


366          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

visited  upon  him  would  be  so  effective  as  a 
mysterious  and  inexplicable  defeat.  Mr.  Bona 
parte  Sharp  regarded  what  had  happened  as 
uncanny,  and  often  fell  into  deep  gloom  be 
cause  of  it.  He  had  an  undiminished  confi 
dence  in  the  forces  that  he  represented,  as  the 
Philistines  of  old  had  in  theirs ;  but  he  felt 
that  other  and  yet  higher  forces  had  joined 
issue  with  the  Bonaparte  Sharp  forces,  and 
were  defeating  them,  even  as  it  is  written : 
"  The  Lord  thundered  with  a  great  thunder  on 
that  day  upon  the  Philistines,  and  discomfited 
them." 

"  Sharp  reminds  me,"  said  a  member  of  his 
set,  after  these  occurrences,  putting  his  own 
characteristically  superficial  interpretation 
upon  them,  "  of  the  saying  of  an  old  planta 
tion  slave  who  belonged  to  my  grandfather  in 
the  South.  He  accompanied  my  grandfather, 
on  one  occasion,  on  a  hunt  for  wild  turkeys. 
My  grandfather  hit,  high  in  the  air,  an  enor 
mous  cock,  which  came  screaming  and  careen 
ing  down  into  a  swamp.  Dogs  and  men  went 
after  him.  He  was  badly  hurt,  wing  broken 
most  likely,  but,  in  spite  of  all  they  could  do, 
he  got  away.  My  grandfather  was  greatly 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      36? 

vexed,  and  could  hardly  get  over  it  all  day. 
*  Well,  massa,'  said  Hannibal,  trying  to  con 
sole  him,  '  dis  one  ting  am  sartin :  dat  yere 
ole  turkey  cock,  he  not  roost  so  high  any  moa, 
shua !  ' " 

As  time  passed  on,  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp 
came  to  this  theory :  That  Thomas  Bennett 
was  absolutely  trustworthy ;  that  he  was  lia 
ble,  at  rare  intervals,  to  go  out  of  his  mind 
(this  proclivity,  he  thought,  threw  light  on 
Bennett's  extraordinary  reticence  about  him 
self);  that  the  wily  McLeod,  dogging  his 
tracks,  took  advantage  of  him  at  such  a  mo 
ment  ;  and  that  Bennett  perished  by  drown 
ing,  as  the  facts  seemed  to  indicate.  He  often 
dreamed  of  the  lonely  oarsman  dying,  thus,  in 
the  fierce  storm,  and,  after  this  dream,  invari 
ably  had  a  gloomy  day.  Next  summer,  on  his 
physician's  orders,  he  went  over  sea  for  the 
first  time.  He  landed  at  Queenstown;  fol 
lowed  Thomas  Bennett's  route  to  Killarney; 
stayed  at  the  same  hotel ;  had  himself  rowed 
to  the  point  on  the  shore  of  the  Upper  Lake 
where  the  damaged  boat  had  been  found  ;  dis 
embarked,  and  was  deeply  moved.  "That 
man,"  he  said  to  himself  aloud,  "  was  one  in  a 


368          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

thousand  !  Had  he  lived,  the  clouds  had  not 
begun  to  settle  down  over  Bonaparte  Sharp's 
life ! " 

He  had  been  assisted  up  the  rugged  and  pre 
cipitous  shore  by  the  boatman.  He  had  then 
requested  his  helper  to  withdraw  himself  a 
considerable  distance,  saying,  in  explanation: 
"No  man  knows  the  meaning  this  spot  has 
for  me,  and  I  wish  to  be  absolutely  alone 
here  with  my  thoughts."  But  such  was  the 
pallor  that  had  overspread  his  face,  especially 
after  the  boat  reached  the  Upper  Lake,  and 
such  a  dead  weight,  almost,  had  he  been  in  as 
cending  the  slope,  that  the  boatman,  instead 
of  obeying  him,  hid  himself  behind  a  project 
ing  rock  not  far  away.  There,  after  a  few 
moments,  he  was  just  lighting  his  pipe,  when 
he  heard  the  foregoing  words  about  Thomas 
Bennett,  spoken  in  a  shrill,  tremulous  voice, 
utterly  pathetic,  that  ended  in  a  wail  of 
anguish.  Peeping  superstitiously  out,  in  fear 
of  something  unearthly  in  that  weird  place, 
the  boatman  beheld  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  tot 
ter  and  fall.  He  ran  to  him,  but  there  was  no 
respiration.  He  felt  for  his  heart,  but  it  had 
ceased  to  beat. 


THE  BOATMAN  BEHELD  MR.  BONAPARTE  SHARP  TOTTER  AND  FALL 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      369 

They  buried  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  in  what 
he  had  boasted  was  the  most  splendid  tomb  in 
America.  At  his  right  lay  the  wife  of  his 
youth,  whom  drudgery  and  his  petty  econo 
mies  had  driven,  many  years  before,  into  a 
decline.  At  his  left  lay  his  daughter,  Eugenie, 
whose  heart  he  had  broken.  There  was  none 
to  mourn  him,  save  the  sad-eyed  but  beautiful 
child,  now  in  her  sixth  year,  whom  Eugenie  had 
left,  and  whose  kin  at  once  plunged  into  huge 
litigation  about  his  estate ;  but  she  could  by 
no  possibility  mourn  one  whom  she  had  always 
regarded  with  abject  dread.  "  Can't  grandpa 
get  out  of  the  church  ?  "  she  timidly,  wistfully 
asked  ;  and,  being  answered  truthfully,  clapped 
her  dimpled  hands,  and  cried,  "  Oh,  goody  !  " 

Widely  over  the  land,  the  day  after  his  de 
cease,  hundreds  of  men  whom  he  had  ruined 
took  one  another  solemnly  by  the  hand,  say 
ing,  "  We  thought  God  was  dead,  but  he  lives." 
Widely  over  the  land,  other  hundreds  of  men 
whom  he  had  impoverished,  and  who  had  daily 
expected  him  to  ruin  them,  for  the  first  time 
in  years  breathed  freely.  It  was  with  them  as 
it  is  with  the  birds,  when  a  bullet  brings  out  of 
the  sky  a  large  and  particularly  ferocious  hawk. 


370          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

But  the  newspapers  gave  his  portrait  a  full 
page,  and  printed  in  heavy  type  two  lists  of 
his  benefactions,  the  one  alphabetical,  the 
other  chronological.  His  estate  aggregated 
something  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions,  independently  of  the  billion  or  more 
that  he  controlled.  His  benefactions,  only 
five  of  which  reached  a  hundred  thousand,  and 
only  nine  of  which,  fifty  thousand,  but  which 
consisted  of  many  smaller  sums,  footed  two 
million,  four  hundred  and  fifty-six  thousand. 
"  Credit  him  also  with  this,"  fervently  added 
one  who  had  just  finished  reading  the  two 
lists  of  his  benefactions,  "that  he  did  not 
leave  a  numerous  progeny  to  taint,  if  not  to 
imperil,  every  American  home  with  the  rumor 
of  their  social  intrigues,  their  sensational 
divorce  suits,  their  insufferable  luxury,  and 
their  rivalries,  jealousies  and  feuds  among  the 
Four  Hundred." 

It  is  beautiful,  the  place  where  he  lies.  The 
gifted  but  impecunious  architect  and  expert  in 
landscape,  who  was  for  many  years  almost  his 
slave,  has  there  reaped  a  kind  of  mournful  re 
ward  by  outdoing  himself.  The  tomb  simu 
lates  a  noble  Byzantine  church.  It  stands  on 


The  Last  of  Bonaparte  Sharp      371 

a  commanding  knoll.  It  is  approached  by 
magnificent  terraces.  These  are  connected  by 
monumental  staircases,  which  are  enriched 
with  ecclesiastical  symbols  done  in  the  man 
ner  of  the  period  of  the  Church's  greatest  out 
ward  splendor.  Around  all,  the  rarest  trees 
lift  themselves,  and  the  choicest  plants  and 
flowers  blossom.  The  vestibule,  the  nave  and 
the  transepts  of  the  seeming  church  are  brill 
iant  with  mosaics  and  sculpture.  The  Byzan 
tine  brightness  and  cheer  are  everywhere,  for 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp  hated  gloom.  His  sar 
cophagus,  in  the  chancel,  mimics  a  shrine. 
Across  it  falls  the  radiance  of  prodigal  stained 
glass  by  day,  and  of  hundreds  of  automatic 
ally  lighted  electric  lamps  from  sunset  to 
sunrise.  The  expense  of  maintaining  all  this 
would  support  in  comfort  a  moderate  sized 
village  of  artisans.  The  interest  on  the  origi 
nal  cost  would  carry  on  a  very  considerable 
hospital.  Let  us,  however,  be  kinder  than  en 
tirely  to  regret  that  it  is  always  light  around 
the  ashes  of  one  whose  life  was  a  thick  dark 
ness.  A  lifetime  ought  to  net  a  man  some 
thing. 


XXIY 


AULD  LANG   SYNE 

FTER  nine  and  a  half 
months  of  hard  work 
at  the  Annie  Laurie 
Mine,  with  George 
Wilkinson  as  superin 
tendent  above  ground, 
with  Douglas  Camp 
bell  as  superintendent 
in  the  levels,  and  with 
results  far  beyond  the  most  sanguine  expecta 
tions  of  the  Old  Guard,  whose  very  lives  were 
bound  up  in  the  success  of  their  enterprise, — 
Duncan  McLeod  was  about  starting  to  spend  a 
month  with  his  mother  at  Stirling,  and  to  bring 
her  back  for  a  summer  in  Colorado.  There  were 
reasons,  physiological  and  diplomatic,  in  view 
of  the  program  which  he  was  then  carrying 
out  in  relation  to  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  why 
he  had  given  her  only  twenty-four  hours  in 
June  of  the  previous  year;  but  he  had 
promised  her  a  full  month  when  the  Scottish 
372 


Auld  Lang  Syne  373 

hillsides  should  be  wearing  their  early  garb  of 
flowers  and  of  green  the  next  year. 

The  night  before  his  departure  there  was  a 
great  gathering  of  the  people  of  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine  in  the  hall  of  the  Miners'  Club. 
All  work  had  been  suspended  in  honor  of  the 
occasion,  and  no  well  person,  not  absolutely 
prevented  from  attendance,  was  absent. 
Glimpses  of  what  occurred  at  the  meeting  will 
perhaps  interest  the  reader. 

There  was  singing  by  the  double  quartet  of 
the  Miners'  Club.  There  was  some  excellent 
violin  and  other  instrumental  music.  A 
chorus  of  school  children,  trained  by  Angus 
McPherson,— for  the  mine  had  already  become 
a  place  of  homes, — sang  superbly  a  piece  spe 
cially  composed,  both  the  verse  and  the  music, 
in  honor  of  their  departing  hero.  Then  there 
was  a  recess,  at  which  the  women  of  the  mine 
served  some  very  appetizing  light  refresh 
ments.  The  second  part  of  the  evening's  ex 
ercises  consisted  of  several  short  speeches,  fol 
lowed  by  the  distinctive  farewell. 

George  "Wilkinson  spoke  first.  He  read 
from  a  paper.  This  is  what  he  said  : 

"  I  stayed  here  during  the  troubles  at  the 


374  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

mine,  as  you  know.  I  had  three  reasons  for 
doing  so,  namely : 

"First. — To  watch,  to  post  our  president, 
and  to  be  brakes,  so  far  as  I  could  be,  to  a  car 
that  had  broken  its  couplings,  and  was  run 
ning  '  wild '  down  a  steep  grade. 

"  Second. — To  do  a  large  amount  of  reading 
on  industrial,  economic  and  social  questions. 
It  has  not  always  been  with  me  as  it  has  been 
since  we  have  been  acquainted.  I  have  widely 
known  the  world.  I  had  a  considerable  col 
lection  of  books  in  this  department  when  the 
bolt  fell,  and  Mr.  Hope,  thereafter,  purchased 
for  me,  on  my  successive  orders,  large  addi 
tional  instalments.  I  read,  during  that  black 
year,  as  steadily  and  persistently,  almost,  as 
Mr.  McLeod  must  have  seen  honor  students 
read  at  Edinburgh. 

"Third. — To  make  a  study  of  the  old  in 
dustrial-economic  system,  introduced  here  by 
Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp,  in  comparison  with  the 
new  which  it  displaced.  What  this  study, 
undertaken  along  with  prodigious  reading, 
taught  me,  is  to  me  of  priceless  value.  Suffer 
me  to  state  briefly  some  of  my  conclusions : 

"  No  man  should  undertake  seriously  to  bet- 


Auld  Lang  Syne  375 

ter  the  industrial-economic  situation  without 
much  reading  and  study ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  a  large  proportion  of  what  is  written 
is  of  little  worth.  The  first  value  in  the 
literature  of  the  subject  is  the  facts  which 
it  marshals.  But,  after  you  have  come  upon 
about  BO  many  of  them,  they  largely  duplicate 
one  another.  Furthermore,  while  the  facts 
are  all-important,  they  are,  at  the  same  time, 
simple,  and  bear  almost  exclusively,  so  far  as 
they  have  pertinence,  in  a  few  practical  and 
easily  apprehended  directions.  The  second 
value  of  the  literature  is  the  formulation,  as 
yet  very  imperfectly  done,  of  theories,  justified 
by  facts  and  experience,  looking  toward  in 
dustrial-economic  betterment.  That  which 
grieves  you,  let  me  add,  and  at  times  almost 
maddens  you,  in  the  literature,  is  the  abstract, 
untested,  unvitalized  theorizing  and  preaching 
on  the  subject.  Kead,  then,  I  would  say  in 
summing  up ;  yes,  read  widely  and  profoundly ; 
but  understand  that  much  of  the  reading  is  a 
rubbish  heap,  and  that  one  may  readily  be 
warped  away  from  practical  views  and  from 
actual  service  by  the  mere  glitter  of  its  wordy 
tinsel. 


376          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Regarding  current  methods  of  economic 
and  social  betterment,  it  requires  to  be  said 
that,  while  most  of  them  are  actuated  by  high 
motives,  and  many  of  them  are  of  consider 
able  value,  they  in  large  degree  miss  the 
point.  To  make  enormous  benefactions,  for 
example,  to  universities,  colleges,  technical 
schools,  libraries,  hospitals,  and  so  forth,  is,  of 
itself,  praiseworthy  ;  and  much  of  it  is,  and, 
as  time  goes  on,  will  tend  more  and  more  to 
be,  of  high  service.  But  to  put,  in  these 
directions,  the  main  strength  of  efforts  for  the 
betterment  we  are  considering,  is  a  mistake, 
from  either  of  two  points  of  view.  Such 
benefactions  largely  operate,  on  the  one  hand, 
whether  intentionally  so  or  not,  as  covers  for 
most  reprehensible  industrial-economic  prac 
tices  in  getting  the  money,  a  fraction  only, 
and  often  only  a  very  small  fraction  of  which, 
perhaps  hardly  one  per  cent.,  is  thus  donated. 
On  the  other  hand,  such  benefactions  very 
generally  undertake  to  heal  the  surface  of  the 
industrial-economic  disease,  instead  of  reach 
ing  and  removing  its  underlying  causes.  It  is 
like  medication,  instead  of  building  up  the 
system.  It  is  like  battling  epidemic  and 


Auld  Lang  Syne  377 

contagious  diseases  while  taking  no  account  of 
bacilli. 

"  Combination,  centralization,  and  the  trust 
principle,  have,  doubtless,  great  merits,  when 
we  shall  have  learned  properly  to  apply  them ; 
but  I  am  sure,  and  particularly  from  my 
study  of  the  two  systems  of  running  this 
mine,  that  they  tend  to  grow  top-heavy,  and 
to  lose  in  initiative  what  they  gain  in  facility, 
— in  fact,  to  lose  much  more  than  that.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  organizing  too  much.  A 
thing  may  be  had  too  cheaply.  After  a  certain 
limit  is  reached,  as  with  putting  on  flesh,  big 
ness  becomes  an  incubus,  and,  carried  far 
enough,  means  death.  Our  men  have  made 
this  mine  a  success,  on  the  contrary,  because 
cheapness  was  not  a  main  consideration  here ; 
because  the  mine,  in  its  organization,  was  not 
part  of  an  endless  chain,  but  was  a  very 
winsome  chain  by  itself;  because  it  was  not 
too  big;  because  our  people  could  grasp  it, 
love  it,  put  their  lives  against  it,  and  see  it 
gain;  because,  in  short,  it  was  their  own 
Annie  Laurie. 

"Finally, — and  this  was  what  my  com 
parison  of  the  old  with  the  new  system  during 


378          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

that  dark  year  absolutely  confirmed  me  in, — 
one  may  plant  one's  self,  without  fear  of  suc 
cessful  rebuttal,  on  this  fundamental  proposi 
tion,  namely :  Any  departure  from  the  sound 
est  industrial-economic  righteousness  is  busi 
ness  folly  not  less  than  moral  folly. 

"  The  laborer  is,  indeed,  worthy  of  his  hire ; 
and  capital,  by  the  same  token,  is  worthy 
of  its  hire.  Individualism  and  self-interest,  in 
their  true  sense,  in  short,  so  far  from  being  ig 
nored,  must  have  their  place  and  initiative 
and  reward.  The  denial  of  this,  by  socialistic 
programs,  weakens  the  entire  betterment 
campaign.  On  the  other  hand,  nevertheless, 
nothing  is  good  in  the  way  of  individualism, 
or  of  self-interest,  which  is  not  good  for 
the  mass  of  men,  or,  at  any  rate,  which  works 
injustice,  discrimination  or  damage  to  the 
mass  of  men.  On  this  principle,  the  manage 
ment  of  this  mine,  not  only  in  a  friendly 
adjustment  of  grievances  on  the  few  occasions 
when  they  have  arisen,  but  also  in  granting 
every  faithful  employee  a  generous  share 
in  its  profits,  over  and  above  wages ;  in  per 
mitting  the  men  to  acquire  a  reasonable  part 
of  the  stock  of  the  mine,  and  to  be  corre- 


Auld  Lang  Syne  379 

spondingly  represented  on  its  directorate ;  and, 
at  the  same  time,  in  adapting  these  privileges, 
as  they  have  been  successfully  adapted,  so  as 
not  to  work  injustice  to  the  large  amount  of 
capital  here  invested,  in  the  ( undivided  decre 
ment,'  or  in  any  other  respect, — all  this  has,  in 
an  all-round  way,  laid  the  industrial-economic 
foundation  for  the  large  success  that  has  here 
been  attained. 

"Bonuses,  on  the  contrary,  rewards,  bene 
factions,  and  even  social  settlements, — though 
these  last,  rightly  applied,  are  particularly 
valuable,— can  never,  of  themselves,  bring  in 
dustrial  deliverance.  Mr.  Williams,  our  late 
assistant  general  manager,  for  example,  re 
ceived  instructions  from  Mr.  Bonaparte  Sharp, 
at  a  desperate  moment  in  that  dark  year,  to 
spend  money  lavishly  in  some  of  these  direc 
tions,  and  I  was  consulted  about  the  carrying 
out  of  those  instructions.  To  a  certain  extent 
I  advised  it  and  cooperated  with  it ;  but  it  got 
no  grip  even  on  the  few  earnest  men  that  were 
then  at  the  mine.  It  was  a  sort  of  tip.  It  was 
a  gift  to  blind  the  eyes  against  the  patent  and 
palpable  injustices,  which,  under  that  manage 
ment,  were  continually  practiced  on  the  men. 


380          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

"  Do  not  for  a  moment,  I  pray  you,  infer, 
from  what  I  have  said,  that  I  consider  that  we 
have  attained  perfection  at  this  mine.  We 
have  yet  much  to  learn  and  much  to  accom 
plish.  But  I  am  absolutely  certain  that  the 
fundamental  principle  of  even  and  inflexible 
industrial-economic  justice  toward  all  parties 
and  interests  concerned,  which  underlies  the 
conduct  of  this  mine,  is  that  on  which  alone 
success  may  ultimately  be  expected  anywhere 
and  everywhere. 

"  The  world  is  waiting,  in  short,  not  so  much 
for  more  gifts,  funds,  rewards  ;  not  so  much  for 
more  good  deeds,  kindnesses,  altruisms,  as  for 
even-handed  justice  ;  for  a  chance  for  all ;  for 
a  sense  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  all  men 
for  the  good  of  all ;  and  for  a  jealous  and 
chivalrous  defense,  on  the  part  of  all,  of  the 
rights  and  possibilities  of  each.  This,  indeed, 
will  never  adequately  come,  it  may  be  safely 
predicated,  without  the  transforming  power  of 
that  religious  life  which  has  been  the  supreme 
distinction  of  this  mine ;  and  without,  like 
wise,  that  glow  and  enthusiasm  and  tenderness 
which  have  been  here  embodied  in  warm  human 
loving, — which  last  is  the  distinctive  mint 


Auld  Lang  Syne  381 

mark,  if  I  mistake  not,  of  religion.  But  re 
ligion  even,  and  love  even,  will  get  small 
headway  until  justice  arrives;  justice  indus 
trially,  justice  economically,  and  justice  so 
cially." 

When  the  applause  that  followed  this  speech 
had  died  away,  Douglas  Campbell  arose  from 
his  place,  half  way  down  the  hall,  and  walked 
to  the  front.  It  -was  the  first  time.  It  took 
all  but  two  or  three  persons  by  surprise.  The 
clapping  of  hands,  which  had  begun  on  general 
principles,  turned,  when  the  men  perceived  what 
was  coming,  into  an  ovation  that  was  simply 
thunderous.  Patrick  Sullivan  was  equal  to 
the  occasion.  He  jumped  on  a  chair.  Doug 
las  hung  his  head  like  a  frightened  girl.  It 
was  Erin's  innings.  With  equal  education  and 
opportunity,  it  might  have  been  O'Connell 
that  spoke.  While  the  stillness  was  such  that 
one  could  almost  hear  people  breathe : 

"  Him,  men  o'  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine,"  be 
gan  Sullivan,  "  that  made  Mr.  Hope's  an' 
Mr.  McLeod's  thoughts  for  us  possible  to  be 
wrought  out ;  him,  the  modist,  the  silint,  the 
unsilfish,  the  helper  of  iverybody,  beatin' 
ivery  man  wid  the  drill,  ivery  man  wid  the 


382          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

hammer,  ivery  man  wid  pick  an'  shovel,  ivery 
man  in  bein'  good,  ivery  man  in  not  knowin' 
he's  anny  wort'  at  all,  admired  a'most  like 
Mr.  Hope,  an'  worshiped  a'most  like  Mr.  Mc- 
Leod,— I'm  a  movin',  Mr.  Chairman,  free 
cheers  fer  him.  Whin  that  hiretic,  McLean, 
had  done  his  worst,  wid  all  the  drinkin',  an' 
swearin',  an'  gamblin',  an'  bein'  lewd  fifty 
ways,  an'  loafin'  on  jobs,  an'  fillin'  out  lyin' 
time  cards,  an'  stealin'  ore,  an'  takin'  life  ;  an' 
whin  that  anti-pope,  the  auld  Grandmither 
Williams,  had  got  some  of  the  levels  clared  up 
a  bit,  an'  the  house  scrubbed  a  mite,  an'  fit,  b' 
this  time,  mebbe,  fer  pigs  to  live  in, — along 
comes  the  bist  man,  b'  the  Holy  Mother !  in 
the  Kockies,  barrin'  his  two  big  brithers  afore- 
mintioned,  an'  the  mine  is  the  glory  she  is  to 
day  because  o'  him.  T'ree  cheers,  thin,  fer 
that  good  Catholic,  Douglas  Campbell ! " 

Patrick  Sullivan's  voice,  as  he  spoke,  not 
withstanding  his  accent  and  dialect,  was  so 
norous,  well  modulated,  full  of  passion,  and 
there  were  tears  on  many  a  cheek  before  he 
was  done.  The  three  cheers  became  nearer 
thirty ;  the  men  rose  in  a  body ;  made  for 
Douglas  Campbell,  Sullivan  leading  them ; 


Auld  Lang  Syne  383 

seized  a  table ;  detailed  four  stalwart  men  to 
officiate,  one  at  each  leg  ;  and,  when  they  had 
it  level  and  steady  as  a  rock,  high  above  the 
men's  heads,  they  lifted  Douglas  upon  it,  there 
to  make  his  speech.  Then,  all  standing,  they 
awaited  what  he  should  say. 

He  could  not  command  himself  at  first.  His 
trying  to  do  so  brought  a  sympathetic  lump 
into  many  throats.  After  that,  he  was  stage- 
struck,  until  he  caught  Margaret's  eyes.  For 
Margaret  had  come  in  the  previous  autumn, 
she  and  the  bairns,  from  St.  Mnian,  and  alone. 
Duncan  McLeod's  favorite  project  of  her  man's 
going  to  fetch  her  could  not  be  managed, 
such,  in  the  peculiar  circumstances,  was  the 
pressure  of  work  at  the  mine.  Margaret, 
moreover,  had  not  been  in  the  camp  two 
weeks  before  she  was,  to  all  the  women  and 
children  there,  what  Douglas  was  to  the  men. 
When  he  caught  her  eyes,  a  look  came  into 
his  face,  and  he  read  from  a  paper  these  words : 

"  You  remember  July  1.  The  Jews'  coming 
back  to  Jerusalem  scarce  excelled  it.  Men 
laughed,  and  cried,  and  hugged  and  kissed  one 
another  like  women.  You  remember  the  first 
service,  and  Duncan's  sermon,  from,  'When 


384          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of  Zion, 
we  were  like  them  that  dream.'  It  has,  men, 
been  a  dream  ever  since,  but  a  true  dream, 
thank  God !  and  a  dream  getting  more  won 
derful,  and  yet  more  wonderful,  day  by  day." 
Here  there  were  a  stillness  and  sobs,  and 
then  Angus  McPherson  started, — 

"Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings  flow! " 

"Duncan,"  Douglas  continued,  when  the 
singing  had  ceased — "  Duncan  took  pledges  of 
us,  that  night,  in  the  canon.  I  am  to  report 
on  them.  Not  a  man  broke  the  moral  pledges. 
The  pledge  to  Christ  only  eleven  men  broke. 
They  were,  all  of  them,  in  infidel  camps,  and 
their  lapse  was  of  the  head,  not  of  the  heart. 
Nine  of  them  have  turned  again.  The  other 
two  are  in  the  mood  of  Thomas,  the  week 
after  the  resurrection,  wanting  to  believe,  but 
not  yet  quite  able  to  do  so.  They  will  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  Lord  soon,  as  Thomas  did,  and 
then  all  will  be  clear. 

"  Only  one  more  word,  men.  Looking  back 
on  all  that  has  been  accomplished  at  this  mine, 
that  word  is:  Christ  did  it.  Economics  did 
not  do  it.  Sociology  did  not  do  it.  Those 


Auld  Lang  Syne  385 

two  personal  fountains  of  love  and  inspiration, 
even,  whom  we  think  of  with  special  grati 
tude  to-night,  did  not  do  it.  Were  I  at  liberty 
to  divulge  some  of  the  secret  history  of  this 
mine,  the  proof  would  amount  to  a  demonstra 
tion.  But  none  of  us  needs  to  have  it  demon 
strated.  We  know  it.  He  who  filled  the 
nets,  and  the  fish's  mouth,  is  under,  and  behind, 
and  above,  and  beyond  the  economics,  the 
sociology,  the  wise,  intrepid  and  inspiring 
leadership,  the  capital  and  the  labor.  '  With 
out  me,'  he  says, — and  the  Annie  Laurie  Mine 
attests  it, — '  ye  can  do  nothing.' " 

"Amen!"  "Amen!"  "Amen!"  rose  on 
all  sides,  and  Patrick  Sullivan  was  two  sec 
onds  ahead  of  Angus  McPherson  in  start 
ing,— 

"  All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name! " 

When  all  were  in  their  seats  again,  John 
Hope  rose  from  beside  Douglas  Campbell 
and  walked  to  the  front.  Hearts  were  too 
tender  for  applause.  Before  he  could  begin, 
however,  George  Wilkinson  was  on  his  feet. 
"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  propose  that  our 
demonstration  for  this  speaker  be  on  this  wise : 
25 


386          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

upon  due  signal,  let  us  rise,  and  say  together 
these  words  from  Tennyson,  out  of  the  Well 
ington  Ode : 

"  'On  God  and  Godlike  men  we  build  our  trust.'" 

"When  the  entire  audience,  standing,  had, 
like  the  roar  of  Niagara,  recited  that  great 
line,  John  Hope,  blushing  scarlet,  said,  when 
all  were  seated : 

"A  duty  has  been  assigned  me  to-night; 
but,  before  I  discharge  it,  suffer  me  this  word : 

"The  two  experts  that  have  preceded  me, 
one  in  economics,  the  other  in  religion,  have 
credited  the  success  of  this  mine  to  its  sources, 
to  justice,  and  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  am 
sure  we  agree  with  all  that  both  of  these  men 
have  said,  but  there  is  one  factor, — referred 
to,  indeed,  by  Mr.  Wilkinson,  in  his  words 
about  religion's  '  mint  mark,' — which  I  cannot 
but  emphasize.  Mr.  Campbell  has  intimated 
that  there  has  been  a  secret  history  going  on 
here.  I  know  something  of  that  secret  his 
tory,  as  well  as  he.  We  had  a  touch  of  it  just 
now.  When  he  was  stage-struck,  towering  up 
yonder  on  that  table  with  human  feet,  there 
was  a  secret  history  about  how  he  got  over  it. 


Auld  Lang  Syne  387 

I  glimpsed  it.  Perhaps  it  did  not  escape  others 
of  us.  Eyes  did  it." 

At  this  ensued,  first  a  smile,  then  laughter, 
and  then  three  cheers  for  Margaret  Camp 
bell,  led  also  by  Patrick  Sullivan,  while  two 
lovers,  of  fifteen  years'  standing,  hid  their 
faces  like  children. 

"  Men,"  John  Hope  continued,  "  '  Love  is  of 
God.'  Great,  deep,  passionate  love,— God's 
best  human  gift, — has  been  a  main  factor  in 
making  our  mine  what  it  is.  The  homes  here, 
the  women,  the  children,  the  deep  romance  of 
living,  have  been  God's  beautiful  instruments 
in  effecting  what  we  thank  him  for  to-night. 

"  Mr.  McLeod,"  John  added,  while  Marjorie 
Campbell,  Douglas  and  Margaret's  sweet  girl 
of  thirteen,  brought  forward  a  mysterious 
something  covered  with  a  drapery — "  Mr.  Mc 
Leod,  it  was  agreed  that  our  love-token  to 
you,  as,  for  a  season,  we  part  to-night,  should 
be  a  gift  from  the  women  and  children  of  this 
mine.  Nothing  short  of  the  mine  itself,  and  a 
half  dozen  others,  could  adequately  express 
what  we  men  think  of  you." 

Here  the  men  went  wild,  and  Duncan  hid 
his  face  in  his  hands  over  the  desk,  until,  after 


The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

some  moments,  John  stilled  the  rounds  of  ap 
plause. 

u  Mr.  McLeod,"  John  concluded,  in  a  voice 
much  shaken,  "  the  best  people  of  this  mine, 
its  women  and  its  children,  present  you" — 
here  Marjorie  dropped  the  drapery,  and 
handed  Duncan  some  elegantly  bound  vol 
umes — "  present  you  with  the  works  of  two 
men :  Phillips  Brooks,  who,  as  no  other  man 
in  our  time,  has  lifted  up  his  voice  in  the 
evangel;  and  Henry  Drummond,  your  per 
sonal  friend,  who,  as  no  other  man  in  our  time, 
has  laid  hold  on  life  for  Jesus  Christ." 

Duncan  cannot  speak.  Again  and  again  he 
tries  to,  but  his  face  gets  into  his  hands  again 
over  the  desk.  Then  Jamie  McDuff  comes  to 
the  rescue.  He  can  speak  little  except  dialect, 
but  he  trusts  that  its  witchery  may  at  least 
serve  to  draw  the  fire  away  from  somebody 
else  who  is  in  peril,  and  he  says : 

"We  hae  had  a  braw  meetin'.  We  hae 
barkened  to  muckle  learning  an'  nane  ower 
muckle  either,  an*  it  has  been  verra  pleasant 
to  the  ears,  anj  edifyin*  to  the  heart.  But, 
Maister  Chairman,  I  'm  a  thinkin'  ilka  ane  o'  us 
wid  like  to  hae  a  pairt ;  an*  I  'm  a  proposin'  that, 


Auld  Lang  Syne  389 

after  oor  Duncan  has  pit  up  a  bit  o'  prayer, 
an'  has  said  the  blessin',  we  a'  tak'  haud  o'  ane 
anither's  hands,  an'  sing  a'  thegither  that  gude 
sang  o'  Babbie's,  '  Auld  Lang  Syne.' " 

Jamie  saved  the  day.  Before  he  was  done, 
Duncan's  head  was  up.  He  never  seemed  so 
erect  and  tall  and  beautiful  before.  "  Mar- 
jorie,  I  thank  you,"  he  said,  when  Jamie 
ended,  "  and  I  thank  every  one  at  the  Annie 
Laurie  Mine."  Then,  at  a  motion  of  his  hand, 
all  were  on  their  feet.  "  Let  us  say  together, 
*  Our  Father,' "  he  added,  and  their  voices,  as 
of  many  waters,  ascended  again.  Then,  after 
the  blessing,  you  might  have  passed  an  electric 
current  through  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  pairs  of  clasped  hands,  while  they  sang 
"  a'  thegither  that  gude  sang  o'  Babbie's." 

While  its  mighty  notes,  and  its  mightier 
sentiment,  are  rolling  heavenward,  let  us 
hastily  slip  out,  lest  it  pain  us  to  bid  them,  and 
all  that  they  stand  for,  good-bye. 


XXV 


AT  DRUMMOND'S  GRAVE 

NE  of  the  hardest  days 
in  Kathleen  Gordon's 
life  was  that  on  the 
evening  of  which  Dun 
can  McLeod  tapped  on 
his  mother's  window, 
in  the  firelight,  and, 
rushing  in,  lifted  her 
into  his  arms. 

The     morning     mail 
brought  a  proposal  from 

one  of  the  heaviest  business  corporations  in 
England,  lavishly  to  endow  Stirling  House, 
Liverpool,  and  otherwise  to  push  settlement 
work.  The  corporation  was  not  only  very  rich, 
but  was  notorious  for  the  concerns  it  had 
crushed,  and  for  the  enlightened  parsimony  and 
arbitrariness  with  which  it  treated  its  thousands 
of  employees.  But  its  head  was  a  delightful 

man  personally,  full  of  individual  kind  deeds, 
390 


At  Drummond's  Grave  391 

and  popular,  consequently,  from  John  o' 
Groat's  to  Land's  End.  He  was  connected  by 
marriage,  moreover,  with  one  of  the  highest 
and  most  favorably  known  peers  of  the  realm. 

"  I  know  not  how  American  altruists  recon 
cile  their  consciences  with  accepting  that  sort 
of  offer,"  Kathleen  said  to  herself  in  an  agony, 
"  but  I  cannot  think  Jesus  would  do  it,  nor 
Socrates,  though  Plato  might."  Then  she  re 
peated  the  words  of  St.  James  :  "  Your  gold 
and  silver  is  cankered ;  and  the  rust  of  them 
shall  be  a  witness  against  you.  .  .  .  The 
hire  of  the  laborers  who  have  reaped  down 
your  fields,  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by  fraud, 
crieth :  and  the  cries  of  them  which  have 
reaped  are  entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord 
of  sabaoth." 

After  luncheon,  as  if  this  were  not  enough, 
John  Gordon  asked  his  Annie  and  Kathleen 
into  his  library,  bolted  the  door,  and,  with  an 
air  of  mystery  and  triumph,  divulged  the  suc 
cessful  termination  of  negotiations  by  which 
he  was  to  absorb  several  large  enterprises, 
weed  out  a  useless  (so  he  said)  two*  or  three 
hundred  men,  on  pay-rolls  at  high  salaries  (so 
he  said),  and  add  a  very  large  sum  to  his  al- 


392  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

ready  enormous  annual  income.  "  The  papers 
will  be  signed  this  afternoon;  then  I  shall 
endow  St.  Andrews,"  he  exclaimed  with  ardor. 
The  women  looked  grave.  "  You  know, 
father,"  said  Kathleen,  "  whether  or  not  this 
is  good  news  to  me."  Then,  for  the  first  and 
last  time  in  his  life, — and  he  could  never  for 
give  himself  for  it  afterward, — he  frowned 
on  his  wife,  made  a  bitter  retort  to  his  daugh 
ter,  and  left  the  house  in  a  rage. 

Kathleen  supposed  that  an  hour's  nap 
would  restore  her  equilibrium,  but,  instead  of 
sleeping,  she  sobbed  as  if  her  heart  would 
break.  Then  she  duplicated  the  walk  of 
the  day  when  she  wrote  her  letter  of  refusal 
to  Duncan  McLeod.  But,  when  she  reached 
the  Bore  Stone,  where  she  had  never  before 
failed  to  find  comfort,  a  deep  gloom  had 
spread  over  the  sky,  as  if  to  mock  her;  and 
she  was  obliged  to  hasten  home  in  order  to 
avoid  a  brief  but  violent  thunder-storm. 

As  soon  as  she  reached  home  she  plunged 
into  work ;  was  silent  at  dinner ;  accepted, 
with  fresh  pain,  her  father's  apology,  then 
humbly  tendered;  and,  after  an  evening  of 
tremendous  exertion  on  her  correspondence, 


At  Drummond's  Grave  393 

retired.  She  was  so  weary  that  she  slept  at 
once.  She  had  a  beautiful  dream. 

She  was,  she  thought,  a  child  again,  and  at 
Mrs.  McLeod's  for  Bible  study.  Duncan,  as 
usual,  was  absorbed  in  his  books,  and  scarcely 
noticed  her.  Then,  suddenly,  after  the  man 
ner  of  dreams,  a  thing  happened,  the  precise 
opposite  of  anything  that  ever  had  happened. 
Duncan  shut  up  his  Homer  with  a  sharp  sound, 
laid  it  down,  came  over  to  her,  and  asked, 
"  May  we  learn  the  Psalm  together  ?  "  It  began, 
"When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity 
of  Zion."  When  they  had  learned  it,  they 
had  a  good  play.  "  Mother,"  he  then  asked, 
"  may  I  walk  up  as  far  as  the  Grey  friars'  with 
Kathleen  ? "  and,  when  they  were  on  their 
way,  their  hands  touched  for  an  instant,  and 
he  looked  a  look  at  her.  The  thrill  of  the 
one,  and  the  joy  of  the  other,  awoke  her. 

For  an  hour  that  touch  seemed  vibrating 
through  her  whole  being,  and  that  look  seemed 
to  make  the  darkness  lighter  than  the  day. 
Then,  as  in  a  moment,  this  strange  psychic 
phenomenon  passed,  and  her  problems  pressed. 
"Oh,"  she  said  to  herself,  "if  only  Henry 
Drummond  were  alive,  and  I  might  go  to 


394          The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

him,  and  talk  these  questions  through ! "  She 
slept  no  more.  With  the  first  faint  flush  of 
morning  she  dressed,  put  on  a  heavy,  dark 
mantle  and  hood,  let  herself  out  of  the  house, 
and,  in  the  twilight,  came  to  Drummond's 
grave.  There  she  bowed  herself  against  the 
stone,  in  long,  importunate  prayer.  Let  us 
not  blame  her  if  the  human  element  was 
strong  within  her,  as  well  as  the  divine.  Sud 
denly,  amidst  a  prayer  to  Jesus,  she  found 
herself  saying,  "  O  Henry  Drummond,  if 
you  know  of  my  perplexities,  send  me  some 
relief;  a  thought,  perhaps,  or  clearness,  at 
least,  of  mind!"  Then,  comforted,  she  re 
sumed  her  pleading  with  the  Lord. 

Now  it  happened  that  Duncan  McLeod, 
when  his  tryst  of  the  previous  night  with  his 
mother  was  done,  could  not  sleep,  his  head 
and  his  heart  were  so  full.  Also,  that,  on 
his  voyage  home,  he  had  been  making  a 
special  study  of  Drummond,  to  discover  his 
more  primary  meanings.  "  He  was  so  alert,  so 
sympathetic,  so  responsive,"  Duncan  said  to 
himself,  "that,  unconsciously,  he  would  some 
times  so  put  himself  beside  you  that  his  point 
of  view  seemed  to  coincide  with  yours  when  it 


DRUMMONDS   TOMB 


At  Drummond's  Grave  395 

did  not.  Thus,  without  any  lack  of  clearness 
on  his  part,  one  might,  at  times,  readily  mistake 
him.  Therefore  one  must  study  him  carefully. 
Why,  what  is  this,  in  the  Address  to  Edin 
burgh  Students,  of  February  23,  1890  ?  "— 

11 A  personal  invitation.  Christ  has  set  his  heart  on  you 
here  and  now  ;  and  now  and  here  invites  you  to  enter  into 
his  life.  .  .  .  Gentlemen,  he  will  be  your  leader,  he 
will  be  your  guide,  he  will  be  your  highest  ideal.  He  has 
asked  you  for  your  life,  and  he  will  make  you  just  as  you 
are  at  this  moment  his— entirely  his." 

"  That  settles  it,"  Duncan  cried,  and,  as  he 
sped  Stirling-ward,  his  heart  was  at  rest  on  a 
point  that  had  long  perplexed  him. 

It  happened,  morever,  in  his  wakefulness, 
that  first  night  at  home,  that  a  great  longing 
came  upon  Duncan  to  go  to  Drummond's 
grave,  which  he  had  never  seen,  and  because 
of  which  Scotland  seemed  dreadfully  lonely. 

"When  it  has  grown  light  a  little,  he  is,  ac 
cordingly,  on  his  way  thither,  that  he  may  be 
alone  with  the  dead.  As  he  nears  the  old 
church,  he  sees  a  woman,  heavily  draped, 
bending  almost  prostrate  at  the  place  where 
he  knows  that  the  grave  must  be.  "  The 
mother,  doubtless,"  he  says  to  himself,  "  of 
some  student  Henry  helped,  but  who  went  to 


396  The  Annie  Laurie  Mine 

the  bad  after  all ! "  and  he  is  greatly  annoyed. 
"It  was  difficult  to  get  a  moment  with  the 
living  Drummond,  so  did  people  throng  him," 
he  adds,  "  and,  when  you  have  come  six  thou 
sand  miles  to  stand  by  his  grave,  even  that  is 
preempted ! " 

To  kill  time  he  turns  aside,  hoping  the 
woman  will  go ;  but  she  stays.  Therefore,  in 
no  very  amiable  temper,  he  trudges  toward 
her,  but  she  is  so  engrossed  that  he  is  close 
upon  her  before  she  perceives.  Startled,  she 
turns  to  flee ;  but  the  height  and  build  of  the 
man  cause  her  to  look  again.  Their  eyes 
meet.  They  look  into  each  other's  souls. 
She  advances  a  step,  and  reaches  out  her 
hand.  It  is  as  if  two  continents  spoke  to  each 
other  by  cable  for  the  first  time. 

After  some  moments'  ecstasy,  during  which, 
though  their  hands  are  clasped,  they  are 
somewhat  apart  still, — 

"We  did  not  understand  Drummond,  did 
we  ?  "  he  asks. 

"But  all  is  as  he  would  have  wished," 
she  answers. 

Then,  dropping  her  heavy,  dark  mantle  and 
hood,  and  taking  a  step  nearer,  she  leans  her 


At  Drummond's  Grave  397 

beautiful  head  against  one  of  his  massive 
shoulders,  and  the  arms  that  were  made  for 
her  are  around  her  that  was  made  for  them. 

Thus  they  stand,  in  the  deepening  dawn, 
over  the  grave  of  the  best  loved  man  of 
his  time ;  and,  to  the  dew  on  the  grass  above 
it,  are  added  the  gladdest  tears  in  Scotland. 

Then  she  loosens  a  little  the  arms,  lifts 
the  Murillo  face  full  to  his,  and  lips,  that  have 
hungered  since  childhood,  begin  to  be  filled. 
At  the  same  moment  the  sun,  from  beyond 
Abbey  Craig,  throws  its  gold  on  the  highest 
stones  of  the  old  Greyfriars'  Church. 

"  It  is  morning,  at  last,  Kathleen,"  he  says. 

"Of  an  everlasting  day,  Duncan,"  she  re 
sponds  ;  and  the  look  in  her  face  makes  him 
think  of  the  face  of  the  Son  of  God. 


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